


Take Care of You

by embroidered



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: @ both pr and sb.....Kinda, Comfort/Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, From Sex to Love, Lots of Sex, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Romantic Comedy, Sex Tapes, Sex Work, Slight Age Difference, Slow Burn, honestly its nothing josh is 23 tyler is like 30
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-07 03:25:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14071881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroidered/pseuds/embroidered
Summary: Business trips hardly feel like trips at all when you hardly leave your hotel room. Tyler hadn't planned on seeking company, but it seemed like making a friend for the week would be the most convenient thing, even if he was a little pricey.// a story inspired in part by the classic romcom Pretty Woman (1990; dir. Garry Marshall) !! -- shining a light on modern sex work and the confusing period of life that is your mid-to-early twenties //





	1. Chapter 1

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Never in his life had Tyler been so upset over the sound of the GPS woman’s voice being cut off so abruptly. Usually, it was a sweet sound. Double-tapping the home button and swiping away Maps as she gave a direction you already knew? That was liberating. It was safe. Having your phone die in the middle of downtown Los Angeles as you’re trying to make it back to your hotel, however — that was life-threatening. 

“No young guy with a car like this needs to stop and ask for directions. No way you don’t have a GPS in there.”

“My phone is dead,” he said, picking it up and waving it for emphasis. “Please, can you just help me out?”

The guy in his window made a motion with his hand.

“Ten bucks.”

Tyler scoffed. He should have known driving toward the clubs was a bad idea. His only reliable source was someone not stumbling over the sidewalk, and that was proving difficult for him to find. All he came across were prostitutes — just people doing their job — and there was no way he was leaving without losing a little cash. They had to make a living, and this was a good way to do it. Still, Tyler thought ten dollars was steep.

“For directions? Are you kidding me?”

A big smile showed itself on the guy’s face.

“Price just went up to twenty! But for that much, I’ll throw in personal directions. Show you exactly where you need to go as you’re going,” he paused to tilt his head, tongue slipping between his teeth as he grinned. “I can take you wherever you want, baby.”

Tyler looked at the time on his radio — he needed to make a call in forty-five minutes. His phone was dead. He needed to go.

“Fine. Take me to my hotel.”

***

“Take this next exit.”

Tyler nodded, glancing over at the man in the passenger seat. He looked clean. His hair was an unnatural bright green color on the ends, there was a ring in his nose and his nails were painted, but he didn’t look as rough as some of the women working the streets.

“What’s your name?” Tyler asked.

The guy smirked.

“What do you want it to be?”

Tyler rolled his eyes. He’d never heard a more cliche line in his life.

“How about your actual name?”

The other guy huffed out a laugh.

“It’s Josh,” he said, pulling up a knee. “You?”

“Tyler.”

“Tyler, huh?” Josh smiled. A light from the streets passed over his face. “Never met a bad Tyler.”

“Must not have met very many of them, huh?”

Josh scratched his head and checked his fingers.

“You meet tons of people when you do stuff like this,” he laughed and finished off with a lame joke. “Definitely know tons of Johns.”

He threw another direction at Tyler.

“What makes a guy like you stop down there, huh?”

“I was lost,” Tyler said. “My phone is dead. That’s why you’re here, remember?”

“No,” Josh said, shifting in his seat. “You know what I mean. You might not know LA, but you know what kind of people were hanging around down there. And you passed up a whole block of girls.”

Josh watched Tyler’s knuckles flex on the wheel.

“Good question,” he said in a sigh.

Josh smirked again.

“You up here by yourself? No wife? Girlfriend?”

Tyler wasn’t sure how much information he should really be giving, but he also didn’t know what Josh would do at this point that he wasn’t already planning. He already let him in his car; he didn’t seem like any kind of threat. He wasn’t going to rob him — he was working for his money. And prostitutes don’t kill potential clients. That’s not how it worked. Tyler decided the truth wouldn’t kill him.

“Broke up with my girlfriend about two months ago,” Tyler said, glancing up into the rearview mirror.

Josh made a noise of understanding.

“You been with a guy before?” Josh asked, something suggestive in his voice.

He was trying to make Tyler a real client. The way he spoke didn’t seem completely confident, as if he was trying to put on a brave face. Maybe he was new to this. Josh faced him, awaiting his answer.

Finally, Tyler admitted, “Lived with a guy for about a year in my early twenties.”

Josh smirked wider. Tyler flipped his blinker on.

“You know,” Josh said, leaning over the center console as casually as he could. “I could give you a deal. Seeing as I charged you for directions and all.”

“Look, I really-“

“-seem stressed!” Josh finished for him. Tyler swallowed his words. “I know that look. I know the kind of guys who drive cars like this, too. You’ve got a lot of shit going on, and I get that. I wanna help you out.”

His tone of voice changed. He hadn’t forgotten the reason he was invited into Tyler’s car in the first place.

“It’s right there; just pull up to the sidewalk thing there.”

Tyler snapped out of it and drove up to the valet, coming around to let Josh out of the car. Josh stood off to the side, waiting with head and hips canted as Tyler dropped his keys and a tip into the valet’s hand. 

“If you aren’t interested, I can just catch the bus,” Josh said. “But I’m telling you, I’ve never been picked up by a guy looking as stressed as you. I won’t bug you at all, I swear. I just wanna help you out!”

He was bugging him now. Still, Tyler felt bad. At the end of it all, he really didn’t get much from this. All this guy got was a couple bucks and a dent in valuable business time.

Tyler crossed his arms over his chest.

“How was business before you got in my car?”

Josh put his hands on his hips, the white paint on his nails stark against the black of his jeans.

“Honestly? Terrible. Slower than I’ve ever seen it.”

A sigh escaped Tyler’s lips. It wasn’t as if he thought he’d never meet a prostitute, he just didn’t think he’d find himself with the opportunity to hire one. Or the desire to go through with it.

“Were you just going to go back to the block?”

Josh shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. There was a crinkling sound. His hands moved subtly back to the waistband, but Tyler noticed.

“Probably. Night’s still young, right?”

Josh was becoming impatient. Or anxious, rather. The limbo of whether or not he should go to the bus stop was making his foot tap. Tyler sighed and held out his arm.

“...Come on, then.”

***

The walk through the lobby and ride in the elevator was nothing short of a trip for Josh.

“I was half-expecting us to go all the way up to the penthouse,” Josh joked when they stepped off of the elevator.

“We don’t blow that much on business trips.”

It might as well have been the penthouse, at least in Josh’s opinion. The only hotel rooms he’d ever been in had the sinks in the same ten feet of the bed and the television. This one was like a small apartment. There was a living room area, a bar and kitchenette with a small dining area next to it, and an actual separate bedroom and bath.

He hit the jackpot.

Suddenly, Tyler realized he never asked an extremely vital question, one he probably should have asked before inviting Josh up to his room: the price.

“It’s gonna be seventy-five.”

Never take less than a hundred — that’s what they said on TV. They hadn’t talked details, but Tyler wasn’t looking for much, and maybe Josh wasn’t offering much either. They both had work to do. He reached into his pocket, grabbed his wallet, and handed him three bills. Josh stuffed them in his front pocket immediately and reached into his back ones to pull out the necessary supplies.

“Okay, go get comfortable somewhere, unless you wanted to do this like...right here. I got a couple different sizes so I’m gonna need to see you before I-“

Josh’s spiel and Tyler’s spinning head were both interrupted by the unexpectedly loud ring of Tyler’s cell.

“Oh shit,” he said, looking at the caller ID. “I have to take this, hold on.”

He moved quickly towards the dining area table, pulled out a chair, and swiped to accept the call. Four condoms in hand, one shoe half-off, Josh was frozen, dumbfounded. He watched as Tyler shuffled through the papers strewn across the table, head cradling his phone on his shoulder.

He didn’t have time for this — neither of them did. Tyler only paid for one hour, and he was going to waste it on the phone.

Josh walked over to the table and turned Tyler in his chair, startling a noise out of him.

“I-I’m sorry, could you hold on just a moment?”

Tyler covered the mic and moved the phone away from his mouth. Josh was kneeling at his feet.

“What are you doing?” Tyler whispered harshly.

Josh whispered back. 

“The hour starts as soon as you pay me. If you aren’t gonna pay for more than an hour, we gotta go now-” Josh undid Tyler’s belt. “-and I’m not waiting for you to get off the phone.”

Josh nodded toward Tyler’s hand. 

“Go on. Don’t leave ‘em hanging.”

Tyler’s brow furrowed. This guy was going to get him fired. Still, he was right — he only paid for an hour. Tyler slowly brought the phone back up to his ear.

“Sorry. Are you still the- hi, yes...of course.”

Josh tugged on Tyler’s pants and underwear until he got the message, lifting off of the chair until he could pull them down to his ankles. He didn’t find this worth wasting lube on, so he wet his hand with the flat of his tongue. It didn’t seem like he was going to spend much time with just a hand anyway; Tyler was already starting to get hard.

Tyler struggled to keep his breathing as regular as he could. It was easy to stay quiet if that was the only thing he had to focus on, but it was hard when still trying to carry a conversation.

“I just feel as though th-the shift in tone happens too quickly.”

When Josh felt as though he’d worked Tyler to a satisfying hardness, he held the shaft loosely in his palm and started his tongue up from the bottom of the underside.

“Mmm-mm hmm. I think that you just need more build-up. …Yes. I can see how that would happen. You have to read it closely, though. Try it out loud, even,” Josh started to feel up his balls, too. Tyler’s knees fell wider apart. “If the time progression sounds weird, write in the gaps. Yeah…” Josh’s eyes closed as his lips wrapped around the head. Tyler risked a deep breath.

Wet kisses were laid all along his shaft. The noises they made were soft, but audible enough.

Tyler continued. “Sure, if you’d like. Go ahead.”

The person on the phone must have been going on long enough for Tyler to be only half-listening. He was reading something aloud — Josh could hear the shift in the tone of the man’s voice even from his position between Tyler’s legs.

Josh watched Tyler for any general reactions. Tyler, slack-jawed and tuned out of the person on the other line, was focused on the silver ball in the middle of Josh’s tongue before he caught his eye. Josh grinned and clicked it against his teeth.

Their eye contact broke as Josh took advantage of his minimally-divided attention to sink down on his now fully-hard cock. Tyler’s head fell back and his chest expanded. The line fell silent; the other person on the had stopped talking.

“It sounded- yeah. Right there- yeah, where you said- uh-huh,” Tyler’s hips bucked. Josh squeezed his thigh. “No, no I think it’s a great idea. I can’t judge the way it's written ‘til…you’ve done it though.”

The ball on Josh’s tongue flicked against the head. He sank back down.

“I’m sorry? ...Yes, I’m okay,” Tyler was looking off into the kitchen. “It’s a bit late, sure. I’m...I’m going over the next section tonight, so have those edits done tomorrow. It’s short.”

Tyler’s gaze moved back down to Josh.

Josh was staring right back with his tongue out and a hint of a smile on his face. Josh sucked a bead of pre-cum from the tip, short eyelashes fluttering against the bags under his eyes. Tyler kept his gaze focused as he attempted to wrap up the call.

“I’ll be calling you tomorrow. Five-thirty. Have those edits finished. Yup. Uh-huh. Good night.”

The noise of Tyler’s phone locking with a click and dropping onto a pile of papers signaled a laugh from Josh and a groan from Tyler.

“Jesus Christ,” Tyler breathed.

“Gotta let me know when you’re gonna cum. I won’t swallow for a stranger.”

Josh dove back down, making Tyler throw his head back again. He took a deep breath before attempting speech.

“You just swallowed that. It’s the same thing.”

The small vibrations of laughter from Josh’s throat teased the tip as he pulled off with a chin painted in saliva and a mouth full of grins.

“Little bit won’t kill me,” he said, then paused for a second. “But you still gotta tell me.”

Another groan fell from Tyler’s throat as Josh plunged himself down once again. Tyler reached a hand down to his hair, threading his fingers in gently. The texture was odd; there was definitely product in it. As it started to rub off in his sweaty palms, Tyler realized that the green in his hair must have been put on just that day. He didn’t realize people still used one-day hair color.

With his now subtly green-tinted fingers, Tyler kept a loose hold on Josh’s head as it moved up and down his cock. The warm tightness of his throat squeezing around him made Tyler lift his hips slightly, unintentionally driving it farther. Fingers dug into Tyler’s thigh and moans resounded from both parties.

As Josh pulled himself back up, his eyes found their way back up to Tyler’s. Josh pulled off with a wet kiss to the head and a thoughtful swipe of the tongue along the shaft. Tyler told him that while he was off, he might as well stay that way.

“Think you’re gonna cum?”

Josh tried to discreetly wipe the spit off of his chin with the back of his hand, but Tyler still saw. It didn’t matter. Tyler let go of Josh’s hair and balled his hand into a fist to keep from staining anything green.

The hand on Tyler’s cock moved fast and easy. Josh’s eyes would periodically flick up to check on him, offering a smile any time they’d make eye contact. Josh could feel the muscles in Tyler’s thighs begin to tense up.

“Getting closer?” His low voice was nearly a hum.

Tyler merely nodded.

The hand from Tyler’s thigh moved down to play with his balls again. Tyler started breathing heavily through his nose.

“Come on,” Josh mumbled. “Let me see it.”

After a few more seconds, another moan sounded from Tyler’s chest, cum leaking from the head and quickly spread along the shaft by Josh’s moving fingers. His hand slowed to a drag as he pulled the rest of his orgasm. Tyler leaned back in his chair for a moment, catching his breath with limbs dead beside him. Josh caught his gaze eventually, allowing not a smirk, but a grin to take up his face. Tyler couldn’t help but let out a laugh and smile back.

“Thought that would be a little quicker, I’m not gonna lie,” Josh said.

“What, you think I’m just not getting laid?”

“You picked me up-”

Tyler finished for him.

“-on accident.”

Josh chuckled and helped Tyler back into his pants before standing again. He leaned with one arm out on the designated work table, looking on at the other man as he adjusted himself in his seat.

“You know,” he started. “I feel kinda bad.”

Tyler pulled the belt from his pants completely. He didn’t need it anymore today. He was changing as soon as Josh left. 

“And why’s that?” he asked.

“I feel bad ‘cause you got charged for a full fuck, but I only gave you half so your time wouldn’t run out.”

Tyler paused his adjusting. Surely he’d heard him wrong. Josh just looked at him.

“...You only charge seventy-five for a full fuck?”

Judging by the tone of his voice, Tyler thought that was too much of a bargain. Josh wasn’t going to tell him that he felt bad charging him extra anyway, but now would be especially inappropriate. He kept his mouth shut and shrugged before giving his explanation. He was just going to have to pretend this was standard.

“It’s hard out there nowadays. The cops know what we’re doing if we’re too obvious about it — they like to hang around and watch. It’s a lot easier on the internet, but I gotta charge for the extra danger I went through and still keep it at a price people are willing to pay.”

Tyler was still confused.

“Then why even streetwalk?” he asked.

“It’s direct. It’s easier to tell if a guy picking me up is gonna kill me or’s like an undercover cop if I can see him first thing,” Josh explained. “If you meet online and meet up, that’s scary. They know how to contact you. If they stalk you or harass you all the time, you can’t report them to the police. They’ve got tons of blackmail on you.”

Josh leaned back against the table with his hands on either side and continued his lecture.

“Guys outside have no idea who you are or how to find you unless you tell them or show up in the same place. I don’t have a pimp or anything like that — I just find hookups who look like they’d actually pay. I only turn tricks when I really need to.”

“Don’t younger people use the internet more often, though?” Tyler asked.

Josh laughed. It didn’t sound cheerful.

“Yeah, that’s why most of my clients are kinda old. It’s a lot easier to get older guys to feel bad enough to give you money, too.”

That raised a question with Tyler. Josh seemed young, but he didn’t really peg him as that much younger than himself.

“How old are you, Josh?”

“Turned twenty-three last June,” he looked back over at Tyler, whose eyebrows raised. Apparently he’d thought differently. “How old are you, Tyler?”

“Early thirties.”

Josh was unphased. He shrugged, pushed himself off of the table and stood straight, turning toward the man in the chair.

“That’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing close to the guys that try and pick me up on the regular. And my last boyfriend was about your age, so I’m not bothered.”

Tyler’s eyebrows rose again.

“Was he really?”

“Just about, yeah,” Josh smiled. “You’re a bit more put-together than him, though.”

“Do you have a boyfriend now?”

Tyler didn’t ask in a suggestive way, but Josh decided to poke fun anyway.

“Who’s asking?”

Tyler stood from his chair and walked toward the kitchenette, ignoring the shit-eating grin on Josh’s face.

“The guy who just paid you for a full fuck, apparently,” he called behind him.

Josh’s grin shied a bit. It was just a close-mouthed smile.

“I’m single, don’t worry. No cheating.”

Tyler flipped through a small, laminated booklet on the counter.

“Didn’t wanna keep anyone waiting.” 

He turned back around to grab the landline off the wall and looked back at Josh, who was standing over by the table, arms crossed and hip cocked. Josh thought it was funny how they still had a wall phone in this room, but he guessed people might lose the cordless ones. Tyler called back towards Josh, putting the phone up to his ear.

“Want anything specific to eat?”

Josh’s eyes widened.

“Oh! You don’t have to- especially since I didn’t like… give you what you paid for… and I was just gonna go to, like, McDonald’s…”

Tyler dismissed him with a wave of his hand and Josh let his voice trail off. He’d already dialed room service.

***

A bottle of expensive wine or champagne probably would have looked impressive, but Tyler didn’t want Josh to think he was trying to get him drunk. Scaring him off was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I drink with friends, but I can’t with clients. Too scary.”

Josh had mentioned this in passing over dinner, but Tyler took it as a sort of off-handed thank you. Josh didn’t say much other than that. All of his energy and attention was put into eating his dinner. Nothing that was ordered was particularly hard to come by; Tyler didn’t really care for delicacies or overpriced food anyway. Still, watching Josh so invested in his bread and pasta was a cause for concern.

“Have you eaten today?” Tyler asked.

Josh started to get sheepish. He shrugged and swallowed his mouthful, putting a hand in front of his lips just in case something were to happen when he spoke. Perhaps he was eating a bit too fast.

“I told you: I only sell ass when I’m desperate.”

Tyler shook his head and motioned with his fork.

“Well, slow down. You’re just going to give yourself a stomach ache.”

Josh brought his hand down and nodded thoughtfully.

“You know,” he said, mouth still half-full of bread. “I’ve been eating like… only fast food and cheap shit for months. I’ve had plain white rice more times this week than I have in my entire life.”

Tyler looked on at him from across the table. He was a bit lean from what he could see, but he still had a defined build, especially in his chest and arms. You could see its outline through his shirt; Tyler couldn’t decide on whether it didn’t fit or it was just meant to be that snug.

“You don’t really look like you’re starving,” Tyler commented.

Josh scoffed.

“What, don’t believe me? I’m not gonna shed every pound on my body every time I run out of food.”

Tyler waved a hand and shook his head.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. You just look fit.”

Josh sat up straighter.

“Well, I have to. I’m only making money off my body, and I can’t pull off the skinny twink look.”

“I thought you said you only had sex for money when you’re desperate.”

Josh let out a rather loud, short laugh.

“That’s pretty much like...one week out of a month now, at least,” he dipped another piece of bread. The oil was mostly down to all herbs now. “But I really don’t if I can avoid it. I still do sex work but like… not as direct.” 

“What do you mean?” Tyler asked in between bites of pasta. “Do you mean like… porn?”

Josh nodded.

“Basically, but nothing seedy. I sell videos and access to my Snapchat. I run a few blogs and stuff, too. Usually it's pretty good money, but sometimes it’s slow. When it’s not enough-“ Josh paused, shrugging. “-You can find me outside.”

The last of the oil was soaked up. Josh pushed his remaining noodles around his plate, too bummed over the loss of the oil to finish the rest of his pasta. Tyler looked on at him playing with his food. He didn’t want him to go out on the streets again; at least not today. He didn’t have the heart.

“Hey,” he said. “How much for the rest of the night?”

Josh raised his eyebrows and set his fork down on his plate.

“For real? How come?”

“I like the company,” he said frankly. “And this is better than where you were going to go. So how much?”

Josh pressed the tongs of his fork onto his bottom lip with a grin. He hadn’t anticipated Tyler ever letting him up to his room just for a handjob, let alone asking him to stay the night. He really couldn’t turn him down. This was always the goal all along, anyway. Tyler made it clear that he thought Josh’s prices were too low, so he figured he’d stop being shy.

“Two hundred for the whole night. I can’t sleep here; I’ve got something kinda early, but I’ll stay as late as you want me.”

Tyler smiled.

“Done. Two hundred it is.”

***

There was a hundred on the bar counter, so Josh took it. That cleaned Tyler out of the cash he had on hand. The rest would be done through a transfer app.

“A hundred is enough to keep me at bay for a couple hours; don't sweat it. Just get it to me by the end of the night.”

Josh’s practice was dangerous, but Tyler said nothing. He wasn’t one to criticize anyone’s business tactics unsolicited. Still, he was worried for him. Nobody in their right mind would offer a service like this and not ask for all the money upfront. It was too easy for assholes to act like they didn’t get what they paid for and refuse to cough up the rest. Josh was too nice.

“Go ahead into the living room. I’ll be out there in a minute; I just need to get my things.”

“We just gonna hang out?” Josh asked, smile tugging at his lips.

“Beats being alone,” he looked back over at Josh standing by the entrance to the living area. “Beats the streets.”

Josh rolled his eyes and walked in, flopped down on the couch, and called out a response.

“Got me there.”

“I’ve got Netflix hooked up,” Tyler called back, sifting through the papers on the table. “If you don’t want to go through the cable or… whatever.”

The array of buttons on the remote was intimidating to say the least, but Josh had somehow managed to put up _Parks and Recreation_ before Tyler made it into the room. Throughout the show, Josh’s head had made its way over to Tyler’s lap. Tyler had abandoned his work on the manuscript at that point —it laid neatly on the side table. Instead, he watched Josh.

Josh was thoroughly invested in his show. He’d seen it before; there were a few times where he’d tell Tyler to watch or he would quote it along with the characters.

“That’s my Twitter bio,” he’d said in response to one of the lines. “Except I changed R&B to punk.”

“You like nineties punk music enough to put it in your description? Were you even around for that?”

Josh wiggled his head about to get a good eyeful of Tyler and gave him a look.

“I said I was twenty-three, not twelve. I was around for some of it! And the movies and radio and the internet are a thing too.”

Tyler bit his cheek to calm a grin trying to split his face.

“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”

Josh let a smile slip on and turned back to the television. Fingers found their way back to Josh’s sprayed-green hair and onto his scalp. They sat like this for a while, Josh watching his show and playing on his phone with Tyler slowly massaging his head. Green was no longer rubbing off onto his fingers; the loose color must have been shaken off by now.

A game like _Bejeweled_ was beginning to take up more of Josh’s attention than the show. This one was quite simple, but the draw must have been the Pokémon in place of the gems. Josh had just finished a stage. A little ball popped up on screen and Josh tapped it to throw at the creature — it shook for a moment and popped right back out in a cloud of smoke. Josh threw his head back and groaned.

“Didn’t catch him?”

Josh let his phone flop onto the plush rug beneath them and looked back up at the older man.

“No. Do you like _Pokémon_?”

Tyler let his hand move from Josh’s hair to the side of his face.

“I did more when I had time to play it. Back in junior high.”

Josh grinned.

“Bet all you remember is like...Pikachu.”

Tyler frowned. Josh giggled.

“I knew every single first generation Pokémon, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, knew!”

“Well, I’ve had other things that I needed to learn throughout the years. Some things can’t stay in your head forever.”

The hand on Josh’s face continued its slow caress, even as he shook with laughter in his lap.

“Excuses,” Josh said, grin full on his face. His voice was nearly a whisper.

The muscles in Josh’s cheeks relaxed —Tyler was staring at him. As his fingertips dragged along Josh’s skin, the end of his pinky finger caught at the edge of his mouth. Josh reflexively parted his lips and his let his tongue hover close. Their mutual stare was broken when Josh decided to turn his head, touching his tongue against the tips of Tyler’s middle and index finger. His lips parted even further as the fingers pushed in until Josh’s eyes closed, the first knuckle now unable to be seen.

Josh kissed Tyler’s fingers as they pulled from his lips. His eyes opened gently and flitted back up to the man above. They didn’t even have to make eye contact for Josh to know it was time to get up. He took a moment to mute the television and tossed the remote aside.

Standing, Josh moved in front of Tyler, who was lounging back on the couch with legs spread. There wasn’t quite much to work with for a strip tease; this was the disadvantage of not wearing lingerie. Bras and panties didn’t look cute with his body, at least he thought so, and jockstraps and thongs only worked for certain people. Still, Josh took his time shedding his jacket and pulling his shirt over his head. Tyler’s eyebrows rose at Josh’s presentation.

“Surprised I couldn’t see those through your shirt,” he said, nodding toward the silver bars on his chest.

“Surprised my nipples are pierced, though?”

He still had the guts to joke. Tyler let a smile come his cheeks.

“Can’t say that I am.”

Half of a smirk graced Josh’s face as his fingers popped the button of his jeans.

“Don’t worry,” he assured, responding to Tyler’s expectant stares. “That was the last of them.”

“Socks?” Josh asked.

“Don’t care.”

“Good. Me neither.”

Josh fell to his knees. Hands smoothed over Tyler’s thighs and up to the button of his slacks. Tyler raised his hips and let Josh finally pull them down and away from his ankles. Tyler began undoing the buttons on his shirt himself.

There was no grand reveal when he opened his shirt, Tyler felt, but Josh was immediately torn from the attention he was giving his thighs. He rose up from the floor and leaned halfway into his lap, taking the shirt from off of his shoulders. Tyler worked out when he could, but he didn’t always want to. He was young and healthy enough to maintain slight definition in his arms and legs, but that was about all of it. Josh could care less if he was built or not. He marvelled at the slight tan of his skin.

“Do you spend much time at the beach?” he asked.

“A little. Not really. Mostly just me being like...kind of Lebanese.”

Josh sat back, embarrassed.

“Oh! Yeah. Just- Arabic. Makes sense.”

Josh tried to shake off the encounter and glanced over at the television — something made him try and suppress a laugh. Tyler hid his growing grin with the back of his hand. He was happy the mood was still light; this stage was always much too serious and sensual for Tyler to sit through. This felt more real.

Sinking back down between his legs, Josh tucked his fingers beneath the elastic of Tyler’s boxer briefs and slid them all the way past his ankles.

Tyler didn’t need to spread his legs any farther for Josh to do his work. He didn’t need to spend a particularly long time getting him hard, only about a minute or so of messing around. Once Josh found him at a satisfying hardness, he reached behind him to grab the condoms and lube packets from his jeans. After examining his array of rubbers, Josh found one that he felt would fit Tyler best and set two packets of lube to the side. He ripped the condom wrapper open with his teeth and rolled it on with ease.

Tyler’s gut flipped as Josh climbed back up onto the couch to finally straddle him. Standing on his knees, Josh opened one of the packets and squeezed all of its contents into the palm of his hand, reached behind him, and covered Tyler’s cock with lube. He took up the second and squeezed about half onto the length of his fingers. A rush of heat washed over Tyler’s skin as he watched Josh reach behind him and easily spread the lube around his entrance and slip in a few fingers. A small gasp sounded as his fingers were hilted, all within a matter of seconds. He must have been busy not too long before he found Tyler.

He pulled his fingers out and found his way to Tyler’s cock, getting a secure grip around the base. As their eyes met briefly, Tyler grabbed a hold of the younger man’s hips before looking back down at the place of action.

Lowering his hips, Josh easily guided the tip to his entrance. Pushing just a bit farther, Josh grabbed his bottom lip with his teeth as the head of Tyler’s cock slid in with moderate ease. Once the head was in, the rest of the way was simple. Josh pushed down, down at a steady rate until finally letting go and seating himself, Tyler’s fingers digging into the skin of his hips. A soft moan fell from Josh’s lips as he shifted himself on the entire length; it was much more impressive inside than he’d anticipated.

Arms resting on the back of the couch for support, Josh began lifting his hips from Tyler’s lap. The move back down was quick, coaxing a groan from Tyler and a laugh from Josh. Grin mischievous and sweet still, Josh ground down on Tyler’s cock with his bottom lip between his teeth, hips moving in a way that made Tyler wish he could see it from behind. 

Would it not have been an awkward hold, Tyler would have moved his hands up to Josh’s waist to feel it dip with the circling of his hips. His waist was oddly thin for a man who still had a defined muscular structure like his. There was no real comparable shape besides an hourglass, but even that was wrong. It was just cute, and Tyler wanted to hold it.

Josh got his fill eventually and began bouncing in Tyler’s lap with plenty of soft moans falling from his lips. Generally, Tyler found the sound of a continuous stream of moans and whining to become obnoxious. But Josh was experienced. He was a professional, and Tyler respected his work. Nothing was annoying about the noises he was making — all Tyler had for them was praise.

Josh slammed his hips down, continuing his slow grind after just a moment of rest.

“Fuck.”

Josh hummed a small moan at the expletive. As Josh leaned forward to lift himself up again, he found Tyler’s mouth at his throat, tongue hot and eager. Vibrations smothered the surface of Tyler’s lips and tongue as Josh let out a moan that might seem trashy coming from any other person. Tyler sucked on a spot near the crook of his neck and let his hands move lower on Josh’s hips. Fingers digging into his ass, Tyler guided him back down to meet his own thrust.

“Yeah, fuck me,” Josh breathed. 

Josh’s head fell forward as Tyler detached himself from his neck. Their foreheads pressed together as Tyler held onto Josh’s ass and quickly thrusted up into him. One of Josh’s arms moved down between them to touch himself as Tyler fucked him. Before Tyler got the chance to move in closer, Josh sat up straighter, his hand on the back of the couch gripping even tighter to maintain leverage. He started to push down, meeting Tyler’s thrusts so they were harder, faster. Tyler’s breath was starting to get heavy; Josh fell back onto his shoulder and moaned into his neck. The continuous sobs of “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me” were making Tyler faint-headed. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Josh-“

“Fuck me on my back.”

Tyler was confused; he was obviously running out of time.

“What?”

“Fuck me on my back and cum on my stomach.”

He couldn’t say no to that. Tyler gave his ass a pat and pulled up on his hips.

“Get up then.”

Josh hopped onto the cushion beside them and scrambled over to the other armrest. He snatched the pillow from the corner and shoved it under his neck, the fronts of his thighs immediately meeting his torso. Tyler grabbed the other half of the packet of lube and used whatever hadn’t already spilled onto the table before driving back in.

The new angle seemed to be serving him well. His legs almost instantly unfolded once Tyler got between them. One leg had gone up to the back of the couch, and the other wrapped around Tyler’s back. Josh’s head flopped down on the pillow as a moan-turned-laugh slipped from his throat. There wasn’t anything particularly funny; he was just having a good time. That made Tyler fuck him harder.

“Oh, fuck- Jesus fucking Christ!”

Josh threw his other arm over his eyes as he went into near hysterics, laughing and moaning and whining as he frantically fisted his cock. The sight made Tyler’s stomach drop. It was too much.

Tyler attempted to speak.

“You want me to-“

Josh threw his arm off of his eyes.

“Pull out! Don’t- don’t waste it. Just fucking cum on me, please!”

Tyler nodded frantically and gave Josh a few more hard thrusts before pulling out and tearing off his condom. He only needed a couple quick strokes before he came all over whatever was in front of him. Josh had asked for his stomach, and some did make it there, but the rest had gone on his fast-moving hand and the area beneath it. The two had both moaned rather loudly when it happened, and Josh wasted no time finishing himself off.

As Tyler stood on his knees, slowly stroking himself to calm down, Josh promptly took his free hand under and between his legs. Taking advantage of his still newly-stretched entrance, Josh pushed two fingers in all the way. Tyler actually gasped at the sight; the way it made his stomach flip made whatever was left in him to lazily drip off the head of his cock. He didn’t need to move his fingers in and out much at all; just curling them worked fine enough. It only took a few moments of this before he cried out, shooting up onto his chest and stomach and already painted knuckles. 

Tyler fell into a sitting position and watched Josh come down, chest heaving just as much as his. His fingers slipped out of him after a moment; his arm moved from under him at the same time his leg fell from Tyler’s back, the sticky sweat making it drag along before it finally dropped onto the couch.

“Holy shit,” Josh said to the ceiling, grin returning to his face. It took him a moment to lift his head to look at the other man. “Dude. That was…” His head fell back onto the pillow. “That was awesome.”

Tyler huffed a laugh.

“Yeah.”

“Seriously. Like…ku-dos.”

Tyler laughed again.

“What is that from again?”

Josh peeked up at him.

“What?”

“Saying ‘kudos’ like that.”

“Oh,” Josh laughed. His head fell back once again. “ _Juno_.”

The two sat in silence for a moment, each one steadying their breaths as best they could. After a while, Tyler spoke.

“You can shower first, if you’d like. You’re kind of...covered.”

Josh snorted, felt around on the floor and grabbed his phone. He sat up, careful not to get anything anywhere.

“I won’t be long,” he said, then paused. “...Which way is it again?”

Tyler gave him directions, watching him walk away until the door closed behind him. As soon as he was out of sight, Tyler fell back onto the couch with a soft thud.

Josh made sure to start the shower before he spent too much time at the sink; he didn’t need Tyler getting suspicious. The fog added to the look anyway. Being sure to hold his camera over at least part of his face, Josh snapped a few pictures in the mirror before deciding on the fourth one.

He flipped around the filters to see which one made the cum on his stomach the most obvious —that was the whole point. He captioned it with a simple “friday night surprise!” and a green heart to match the color in his hair. It was cute. He was happy with it. He made sure to save it before posting it to his story, turning on his playlist, and stepping into the now too-hot shower, leaving Tyler with nothing but the sounds of running water and muffled bass.


	2. Chapter 2

Josh left around one in the morning, not too long after he’d finished his shower. Tyler transferred one-hundred and fifty dollars into Josh’s account. Josh made sure that Tyler put some kind of inconspicuous reasoning in the memo; the app tracked your transfers, and that amount scared him into thinking he would be monitored.

“You can’t use just anything for this anymore. PayPal and Venmo and like...all of the major apps like that can get you into big-ass trouble of you get caught selling,” Josh explained.

Tyler assured him it wasn’t a big deal. Nobody was getting arrested. He wrote in a fake memo anyway.

_Thanks for the tickets! Can’t wait to see The Killers! :)_

“The Killers?” Josh had asked, grinning.

“It was the first band I could think of.”

Tyler’s response was much more defensive than it needed to be. 

“They’re not, like, embarrassing,” Josh said with an amused smile. “They’re cool. I just didn’t know what you’d come up with.”

Josh left with a “thanks for the tip!” and an invitation to find him online. And Tyler totally would have — if he’d actually left him with information on how to do it.

***

Tyler suffered two days working at the conference and doing edits alone in his hotel room. The day after Josh left, he did his best to move on. It took some convincing for him to believe that there was nothing particularly special about the day before, but he managed. At least for that day. Maybe he’d just been having bad sex in general, so this time threw him off. Josh was just making his rounds; he’d probably trained himself to act the way he did with every person he fucked.

But the following day wasn’t so easy. He found himself drifting off in the middle of sentences, having to read them over twice more before they registered in his brain. His phone calls with the author were less than informative. Tyler hardly remembered what happened in the last twenty pages, but the author didn’t seem to notice. Support was support.

Earlier in the day, his publisher had called to speak with him about their upcoming meeting. Work calls from Ms. Vargas were usually forbidden on Sundays, but she was particularly worried. She’d needed to make an emergency trip home — something about a kid’s broken leg. Being away from the action was stressing her out, so she tried her best to get involved in whatever way she could — even through making forbidden calls.

“We’re trying to uphold the Vargas name, right? Aren’t we nice people?” she’d asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “We need to keep it social. We need to look like we’ve got our lives together. Especially you! You’re the one she’s going to be working with so closely, anyway.”

They were trying to land a deal with a desirable client. She’d sent in a manuscript to five different publishers and every single one of them was trying to make her an offer. Vargas Publishing was a relatively small company; it was slowly crawling out of indie territory, but their work so far has been rather niche. They wanted to branch out, and this seemed like it could be the ticket out into the world of semi-recognizable publishing companies.

“So you want me to bring a date?” Tyler asked.

“If you can. I can’t bring my husband, obviously. Miss Carney only wants to see me for the business things anyway. You’re gonna be her partner through this whole process. You’re gonna talk to her like five days out of the week, be picking apart her writing, giving her advice, talking her through all the breakdowns as you dismantle her hard, blood-sweat-and-tears work — all that-“ She’d paused to speak to a child. It sounded like they were at the hospital again. “Tyler?”

“I’m still here.”

“Anyway, it’ll really look nice if you have someone with you who can vouch for your character besides me. Obviously I’m going to talk you up; I picked you. If you can’t find someone by Tuesday, I understand, but-“

“I’ll try and find someone, Ms. Vargas. I can’t promise anything but...I’ll ask around. Don’t worry about it.”

A sigh came from the other line.

“Even if you can’t bring someone to the meeting, at least have someone to mingle at the picnic on Friday or something. Unless you were really comfortable with the whole bachelor thing.”

“It’s gonna be fine! I’m not that terrible by myself.”

“Just- it’s fine. Sorry I called you on a Sunday. I’ll let you go.”

“I’ll see you on Tuesday, Ms. Vargas.”

“See you Tuesday.”

Tyler hung up and flopped back onto the couch. Running a hand over his face, he considered his options. He had to find somebody. If he didn’t find some kind of date, Vargas would be able to pin the failure of this trip on him, at least for a little while. It was unfair, but public image was a big deal to her. He understood that loud and clear. Someone from LA would be the safest bet, and Tyler only knew one person there. 

He was going to try and find him anyway, but this gave him a better excuse.

It wasn’t as if Josh would have much to say about Tyler, but he was nice enough. That was the whole point. Josh would charm the pants off of her even if all he did was say “hi”.

That, and Tyler just really wanted company out here. Josh gave good company.

A first name and city were not enough. Trying to sift through all of the Joshes in LA was not even an option. Plus, he never said anything about using the same name online; the one he gave Tyler could have just been made up. He was beginning to lose hope when he remembered something crucial: Josh had told him what was in his Twitter bio when they were watching Parks and Recreation. He didn’t remember the quote, but he did remember what they’d talked about. Tyler did a quick search of “aziz ansari 90s quote parks and rec” to find it.

A search on Twitter for “Not loving ‘90s punk music is #3 on the Oh No Nos list.” and filtering it by “people” yielded one single result. It was way too specific.

_josh - 22 - COLUMBUS - > LA // not loving ‘90s punk music is #3 on the Oh No Nos list._

Tyler’s hand hesitated as he went to tap his profile. It wasn’t as if he was really invading on anything; Josh didn’t make his account private. Something about it still felt off.

This was his personal Twitter. This was the account his friends and family followed. This is the account where, it seemed, nobody knew he was a sex worker at all. As Tyler scrolled through his tweets, most were retweeted jokes, pictures of cats, him and his friends, and some vague tweets about missing home. Nothing about his job. Nothing about any good dick he’d received within the last few days. Tyler was only a little disappointed.

There was one tweet that caught his attention — something very, very familiar to Tyler.

_I! LOVE! MY! SISTER!!! i’m so proud of her! please please please buy this book. its so good. pls read ashley’s beautiful poems._

The attached tweet was from Ashley Dun, an author that Tyler had briefly worked with last year, promoting her section in a poetry collective they’d published only a few months ago.

She was his sister. His sister with whom Tyler has a real business connection to.

All the more reason to contact him.

***

The annoying, rhythmic knocks on his door about made Josh lose balance on his knees.

“Josh!”

His roommate jiggled the handle. It was locked.

“...You got a dildo up your ass right now?”

“I’m working.”

There was a pause.

“So, yeah?”

Josh sighed and glanced over at his phone. He hoped he got good stuff before Brendon tried to bust in; he was going to have to cut out way too much. He didn’t even know if he would be able to make a complete video out of this.

“Dude, seriously, I’m working. What do you want?”

“I could help you out — for old times!”

Josh couldn’t see him behind the door, but he knew he was back there wiggling his eyebrows.

“I’m good by myself today, thanks,” he said, wincing as he pulled off. He sat next to it, bare ass on the carpet. Josh reached his arm under the bed; the box of tissues was shoved beneath it to keep it out of the shot. He was just going to make something off of what he already had. He called back out to the door, grabbed his phone and ended the video.

“Brendon, I’m serious, what do you want?”

“...Can I buy food?”

A grunt sounded as Josh stood, cleaning off the silicone with a dry tissue and walking over to grab baby wipes from his dresser.

“With my money? The money I made last night — exclusively for rent?”

“Rent and food. You can go too! Just go to the store with me dude, I’m fucking starving!”

Josh threw on a pair of sweats and moved toward the door, turned the lock, and opened it to a very posed Brendon. His boots gave him just enough height to loom overhead, exaggerated pout on his lips and extreme creases on his forehead.

“Please?” he whined.

“What happened to the rest of your paycheck?”

“I had shit I needed to get, okay?”

He didn’t even need to ask what he bought. He didn’t want to hear it, either. Still, he couldn’t deny them food. He agreed to take him later if he gave him at least an hour to edit his video. Brendon promised to make them edibles next time as compensation for the ruined video.

“Last time you tried to make edibles, they tasted like nothing but weed and you couldn’t get more for like three weeks and almost died.”

“Then I won’t make a whole thing! We can have like...mug cakes.”

Josh couldn’t wait for the chocolate-covered weed and flour in a cup.

***

Brendon was lighting a joint when Josh got the notification on his phone.

“Oh my god.”

Brendon didn’t look up from the hands at his face.

“What?”

Josh didn’t immediately respond, so Brendon looked up once he got a light.

“It’s that guy.”

“What guy?”

“It’s- it’s the guy! The guy from Friday! Tyler! The guy that paid the rest of our goddamn rent — he messaged me on Twitter!”

Josh was wide-eyed and smiling, but he was also very clearly shaken.

“Tell him we need a little extra for food.”

“Brendon- No! No, I can’t just-“

Brendon made a noise to cut him off. He didn’t want to listen to him freak out.

“Dude, calm down. He probably just wants to fuck again or get your Snap,” he said, blowing smoke out into the living room. 

Josh made him open a window and scolded him for smoking before they went shopping. “You’re gonna buy a bunch of crap we don’t need just because you’re high,” he said. Brendon got up with a grunt and cracked the window without even lifting the blinds. When he turned back to look at his roommate, he was lying halfway onto the table, fingers pulling at his hair. Brendon rolled his eyes.

“Why are you so freaked out? He wanna like...piss on your feet or something like that?”

“No! No, God, no- he was…” his voice trailed off, unable to explain himself. He threw his face into his arms out of frustration. “I’m just nervous!” Josh cried, voice muffled by the paint-stained wood of the table they’d snatched from someone’s driveway.

“Dude, just fucking reply to him! Even if you like him, you can still get a couple bucks out of him while he’s still like...willing to pay.”

Josh sighed and sat back up, slouching severely.

“I don’t like him. He’s just cool. And he’s really hot and really nice,” he turned around to look back at Brendon. He was flopped on the couch again with bare feet up on the table, joint in hand. 

“Did I tell you he bought me dinner?” Josh asked.

Brendon squinted his eyes.

“Like, took you out?”

“No, no he like...ordered food up to the room. We hung out all night.”

“...Bet he wants to take you out then. You said he’s nice, right?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s not gonna like...say no to fucking you, but he’s not gonna DM you about it,” Brendon brought the paper back to his lips. “Message him back.”

Josh sighed and picked his phone back up. He was unsure why he was so nervous; he really hadn’t said anything in the message.

_Hey! Sorry, you probably have another account for business, but this is the only way I could find you._

Maybe it was the word “business”. It always made him feel weird when nice people wanted “business” with him. He felt like only quiet creeps and overly-polite younger women online were the only people it sounded normal from.

_oh hey! lol how did you find me here?_

Tyler must have been waiting on him. He replied immediately.

_We watched the episode of Parks and Rec with the quote in your bio, remember?_

“Brendon.”

Brendon was just about passed out on the couch. He managed to croak out a “what”.

“He remembered me pointing out a quote from Parks and Rec and telling him it was in my bio.”

“What a good listener. He loves you.”

“He doesn’t-“

“Just ask him if he wants to fuck.”

Josh sighed and turned back to his phone.

_oh, duh! i forgot i told you that. im surprised you remembered!_

_I didn’t remember the quote, but I did remember what we talked about. It didn’t take too long to find._

Tyler was typing again. Josh waited and stared at the animation of the ellipsis. It went back down. He waited once again for it to rise, but it looked like he gave up. Josh decided to make the next move.

_you said you had business for me? what did you have in mind?_

Brendon had said he wouldn’t outright ask for sex; Josh believed that. Still, he couldn’t fathom what he could possibly want aside from sex or any of his private socials.

_I wanted to see if you’d want to grab a coffee tomorrow. Or is that not allowed?_

Josh swallowed thickly. He glanced over at his roommate, but he was much too out of it to even really listen. He was falling asleep with a joint still lit in his hand. Josh had to brave this on his own.

_what for?_

***

The brevity of the message caught Tyler off guard. It was understandable; Josh was only trying to be safe, but it still read cold. Tyler tried to warm it up.

_I just want to meet again!|_

The exclamation point made him feel less threatening.

_I just want to meet again! There’s something I want to talk to you about. Don’t worry; nothing scary or too invasive. I guess it’s more like a business proposition._

Tyler sat for a moment and decided to butt in before Josh could respond.

_That, and I just wanted to have someone to talk to in person who isn’t a coworker. LA is boring if you aren’t the type to venture off by yourself._

He sent another.

_Oh, and I’ll pay for whatever you get, if that persuades you any._

After about two minutes of waiting, Josh’s typing bubble popped up.

_hmmm…..can i pick the place then??_

Tyler let himself smile.

_Of course._

_hold on! lemme get you an address!_

Josh finished off the message with one of the smiling, blushy emojis. Tyler only hoped that was really what he was looking like when he sent that. Too bad if he wasn’t — that was how Tyler was going to picture him until the next day.

***

“You picked the place, so I don’t know why you’re freaking out over what to wear,” Brendon said, splayed out on the crumpled sheets of Josh’s bed. “You know exactly the kind of crowd that hangs around there. You won’t stick out — he will.”

Josh ignored him and tore through his dresser anyway. A pile of clothes was growing taller and taller on the floor as he searched through the drawers.

“Hey,” Brendon said. “Make sure your underwear is like…completely fresh before you go.”

“Uhh...yeah, they’re clean. Why?”

Brendon started to shift on the bed.

“You know how when they find bodies they check the underwear for like..clues for time of death and stuff on CSI?” An all too familiar popping noise made Josh’s head whip toward the bed. Brendon snatched a suction-cup dildo off of Josh’s nightstand and pointed it at him. The end of a tan silicone dick wobbled in his face. “That’s why.”

Josh stepped over and reached for the toy, but Brendon rolled over and started a game of keep-away.

“That was literally in my ass yesterday,” Josh said.

“I’ve been there. You can’t scare me.”

Josh sighed and went back to digging through his shirt drawer. He and Brendon never dated. Brendon liked casual fucks and got excited when he found out what Josh did for a living. Josh was just nice. Nice, and for a while, regularly horny. Once business started to pick up, the hookups ended too quickly for Brendon to keep up with. He still tried every once and awhile. Sometimes, Josh agreed if he’d help him with his videos. Sex with Brendon never meant much before, but at least now it put food on the table.

Josh finally settled on a plain grey t-shirt. The material was a little too thin; Brendon made fun of his piercings showing. Josh threw on a big flannel and kicked Brendon out of his room.

“Don’t let him kidnap you,” Brendon said on his way out the door.

***

Josh told Tyler exactly where to meet him. Third booth on the left from the door — the one with the hanging pot above them on the wall. Josh had gotten there early, partially from nerves, partially to make sure Tyler didn’t know which direction he came in from in case he was truly a murderer. He wasn’t completely immune to Brendon’s scare tactics.

“Hey.”

Josh jumped at the sound of Tyler’s voice.

“Hey!” he said, flustered, sat his phone down on the table and patted the place across from him. “Come sit down.”

Tyler slid into the booth and took the pocket-sized menu Josh passed to him.

“They actually wait on you here?” Tyler asked. “I haven’t been to a coffee shop that has an actual waitstaff in years.”

“Isn’t it so cute in here?” Josh asked. There was a smile on his face, but he was still anxious.

Tyler agreed and praised certain aspects of the decor, but neither were interested in discussing the café. After a moment of silence, Josh began to say something, but was cut-off quickly by the approaching waitress.

“Are you two going to be together or separate?” she asked. 

Josh knew Tyler was going to say they were together, but it still excited him to hear it out loud. He ordered his usual drink, but Tyler didn’t think that was enough.

“Get something to eat. It’s really no big deal,” he said. “Get something good.”

Josh was pressured into a chocolate chip scone; Tyler got the same. As the waitress walked away, Josh sat back into the corner of the booth and crossed his legs.

“Were you going to say something when she came over?” Tyler asked.

“Oh!” Josh was starting to space out. He was too excited; he needed to calm down and focus. “Yeah, I just wanted to apologize, you know, for like...being kind of stand-offish when you messaged me. It’s nothing against you.”

Tyler leaned up on his elbows, brow furrowed in confusion.

“You didn’t offend me or anything. I get it.”

Josh laughed, relieved.

“Oh, good,” he said “I just really have to be careful. It’s like… I know you’re a cool guy  
— I spent time with you! It’s just that I can never really know, you know?”

Tyler smiled.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. His tone of voice changed to one of advisory. “You should probably lock that Twitter if you don’t want creeps finding you, though. I don’t think that you’re too incredibly easy to find, but anyone can go through that and find out anything they want about you-“ Tyler smirked. “-and anyone can message you.”

Josh smiled and leaned up onto the table.

“Now if I had that locked, how could we have crossed paths like this again? Maybe I told you my bio on purpose.”

Tyler couldn’t tell if the flirting was genuine or just a business front. Either way, he was going to soak it up.

“I didn’t realize you were so cunning,” Tyler said.

“Cunning?” Josh looked surprised. “Isn’t that like...evil?”

“It just means that you’ve always got something up your sleeve. If I’d said ‘conniving’, that would be a little more evil. Immoral, even.”

Josh almost snorted at the English lesson. He bit back a grin.

“So, what, do people come to you for writing tips or something? I heard you on the phone. You must be pretty smart if you got rich off of that.”

Tyler laughed and shook his head. Josh watched him think of a response as he sipped on his drink — the waitress had arrived with their order.

“Oh, no. My family is just rich so...I got to save whatever I made up until I graduated. I’m an editor for Vargas Publishing Company. The guy on the phone was the author I’m partnered with right now; we’re working on a short novel he’s trying to publish.”

“Vargas?” Josh said, mouth still half-full of bread. “Is that a really big company? It sounds familiar.”

“Ah… no, actually. We’re small, but building up fast,” Tyler set down his drink. He put his full attention on the young man across from him. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about today.”

Josh’s face couldn’t have looked more confused.

“Your company?”

Tyler sighed and leaned onto his elbows again.

“Remember how I said that you could find out just about anything you wanted to know about you on the Twitter I messaged you on?”

Josh nodded.

“Your sister published with us a little while ago. Your tweet reminded me of it.”

Josh blinked.

“...How long were you scrolling?”

Tyler laughed and grabbed his drink. He didn’t pause to take a sip — he just wanted to hold it. Josh watched his fingers wrap around the handle of the mug.

“Maybe a bit too long, now that you mention it,” Tyler said.

“That’s alright,” Josh said with a smile. “That’s not all you came out here for, though.”

Tyler shook his head.

“Of course not. I said I had a business opportunity for you.”

Tyler paused and Josh nearly snorted. He couldn’t believe Tyler was really just going to stop at that again. 

“Which is…? What? You wanna have sex again? You really don’t have to go through all of this just so we can do that, honestly Tyler, I-“

Tyler shook his head.

“No, no,” he paused again. “Well, yes. But that’s not all. Well- that’s not...not just tonight.”

Josh’s eyebrows raised. He leaned his chin into his hand.

“Not just tonight?”

Josh paused at the sound of Tyler’s breath sucking in, as if he were going to say something, but ultimately turned into a rather embarrassed laugh. Josh grinned and leaned up onto his arms once more. He and Tyler were close now. The short distance allowed Tyler to keep his voice low; Josh figured it might not be something he wanted to admit out loud. The corners of Tyler’s mouth twitched upward.

“How free are you in the coming days?”

“I set my own schedule,” Josh said, smile still on his face. “I can afford to move some things around depending on what you’re trying to do with me.”

“What’s tomorrow looking like then? Tomorrow night at seven?”

“It’s open if you tell me what you’re trying to get me to do!”

Tyler nodded, chuckling to himself. Josh’s eyes were alight — he was excited through and through. Tyler stopped beating around the bush.

“I want you to go to dinner with me tomorrow. I’m meeting with a very important client and I need someone who I can trust to be polite and charming-“ Tyler smiled. “-and you do that for a living.”

A grin was growing on Josh’s face.

“...So you want me to be your date?”

“I’d pay you, of course. We could make a night of it.”

The look on Josh’s face dimmed slightly. Before Tyler could react to any sign of disappointment Josh was displaying, Josh cut in.

“You sure you want me there? Look...you’re a rich, handsome guy. I know you have friends. Why me? Why pay me?”

“I need a professional,” Tyler said, hands wrapping tighter around his mug. “And your company isn’t the worst thing I could have.”

Josh’s eyes moved away from Tyler’s and down to the scone on his plate —- he’d destroyed it. Crumbs and smeared chocolate ruined the shiny red lacquer of the dish. Tyler noticed. Josh wiped his hands, embarrassed.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Tyler said. “Not for you. It’s just going to be me and my publisher talking to the author. You’re there for looks. If she talks to you about me, you can say you’ve seen me working. And talk about your sister. None of it would be lies.”

“...Is it fancy?” Josh asked quietly.

“We have to impress her,” Tyler said. He tried to make his smile seem reassuring. “Nobody knows dining etiquette anymore, so don’t worry about that. Only weird rich people know about that.”

“But I have to look nice, right?”

Tyler nodded.

“I’ll give you money for clothes.”

Josh didn’t know what to say. The working side of him was telling him this was a done deal. This was the best case scenario — a nice meal, new clothes, and a good fuck he was getting paid another good chunk of this month’s rent for. The disappointment he felt when Tyler offered to pay him was significant as well, but Josh wasn’t sure exactly why it was disappointing. Even if he was hoping for a real date, Josh couldn’t be upset over the laundry list of benefits.

“I can give you a list of stores that will help you. Just tell them what kind of event you’re looking for clothes for and they’ll find exactly what you need and make sure you look good.”

Josh’s eyes made their way back up to Tyler’s. A shy smile played at his lips.

“I’ll go after lunch. What’s your schedule looking like for tonight?” Josh asked. “I figured I’d give you a discount, seeing as you bought me breakfast and all.”

“Breakfast?” Tyler laughed. “Coffee and a scone that’s half crumbs don’t make breakfast.”

“Then coffee and half a scone.”

“I’ve got more edits I have to do,” Tyler said. “But I’ll set a deadline for eight.”

***

Tyler and Josh bartered the price. Josh went in the wrong direction.

“Fifty bucks for whatever you wanna do,” Josh said.

“Fif- Josh, that coffee and scone were like nine dollars rounded up!”

“Then forty.”

Tyler’s eyes just about bugged out of his head.

“No! No, I’m giving you seventy-five at least. You really don’t need to be selling yourself this cheap. Even seventy-five feels like stealing.”

Josh tried to pretend like he wasn’t blushing.

When they were ready to leave the coffee shop, Tyler asked if Josh had a ride home. Josh convinced him that he would be okay, really, he would be just fine on the bus.

“Really, if you want a ride home, I’d be perfectly happy to take you in my car.”

Josh finally agreed. When they started on the road, Josh decided to be the one to actually come out and say it.

“Why are we waiting for tonight?”

They drove quickly back to the hotel. Josh had come prepared — four condoms and two packets of lube, as usual, but it seemed that Tyler had gone and bought some of his own.

“Prep yourself ahead of time again?” Tyler teased as he spread the liquid along his fingers.

“Not today,” Josh grinned. “But I was working on something yesterday. Right before you messaged me.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime.”

After a very brief period with only two, Josh asked for three fingers and nearly melted into the sheets. Tyler kissed his thighs and stomach and chest before rising up onto his knees. Josh’s legs immediately went to his back, crossing his ankles right above his half-exposed ass. Tyler didn’t even bother to take his pants off. They were unzipped and pushed down far enough to pull himself out.

The condom today was pink — Josh picked it out himself. His head writhed against the pillow as Tyler wasted no time pacing himself, immediately moving to a speed that was fast enough to hear soft skin slapping in time like a metronome. Josh’s mouth made its home on the open part of Tyler’s black button-up, biting at his neck as he bent over to try and bury himself deeper.

“Oh, fuck!” Josh cried, hand tugging on his own cock. “Flip me over!”

Tyler pulled out quickly and let Josh lay on his stomach and spread his legs. Josh peeked over his shoulder as Tyler quickly shed his clothes; he was sweating already. Josh crossed his arms under his face as Tyler climbed back onto the bed between his legs. Their knees were right beside one another, bent as Tyler started fucking him again with both hands on the mattress.

Josh used the aid of his planted forearms to push back against him, hips burying into him faster and faster as the rhythm was figured out. They couldn’t move much faster, so Tyler decided to go harder. Josh slipped up on his end just once, which caused Tyler to hit so hard from behind that he knocked him off of the support from his forearms.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry!”

Josh turned his head so that his laughter was no longer muffled. Tyler leaned down to lay his chest against Josh’s back. He kissed his jaw before hooking an arm under Josh’s and holding onto his shoulder. He started to move inside of him once again, slower, but as deep as he could manage. Josh hummed a sweet moan, closing his eyes and wrapping the sheets in his fist.

“That feel good?” Tyler mumbled into his neck.

“Yes!” Josh whined. “Feels so good!”

Tyler rolled his hips back into him, trying to push Josh’s body against the mattress. Josh’s mouth opened up in a gasp; it was too tempting to turn his head up just a little more and let Tyler kiss him. Josh pushed his face down into the mattress. Tyler’s face remained buried between his neck and shoulder.

The thrusts became more like shoves and burials. Josh sobbed into the sheets.

“Where do you want me to cum, baby?” Tyler asked, voice shaky and low.

“Just- my back is fine.”

Tyler slammed into him a few more times, grunting loud and open-mouthed and drowning in Josh’s cries. He came on the sheets before him; Tyler could feel it pool by his knee. The way his ass held on made it hard for Tyler to pull out, but he still managed. Tyler pulled off his condom and came all over his ass and lower back, watching as Josh came down from his orgasm beneath him.

“That was...fast,” Josh said, breathless. A grin stayed, weak, but only out of exhaustion.

“Sorry.”

“I came first,” Josh reminded him. He laughed. “Ruined the sheets.”

“That’s okay,” Tyler breathed. “We’ll just use them again.”

***

Tyler suggested they take a bath. They washed themselves of sweat and other fluids, but eventually, it all came back. Josh stopped “washing” Tyler’s cock and just started jerking. Tyler had the things they needed to be safe even in the bathroom. He was thinking ahead.

This time was slower, wetter, and much more slippery. Josh held onto the edge of the tub as Tyler put his faith in his balance.

Tyler moved in with only a little bit of lube to cover the condom. Josh had been thoroughly stretched just under half an hour ago, but the thickness still made him reel.

The heat from the bath kept Josh’s skin pink. He pressed the skin of his cheek to the much cooler surface of the tile wall.

“Tyler?”

“Yeah?”

Josh licked his lips.

“Want me to call you ‘daddy’?”

Tyler slipped a little; he laughed and held fast on Josh’s hips.

“Uh...I don’t really think that quite fits me,” he grinned. “You’ve got more muscle than I do.”

Josh giggled and pushed back into him.

“You aren’t the textbook definition, no. You’ve got it, though-“ Josh peeked over his shoulder. “-Just enough muscle...little bit of chest hair…hair on your stomach all the way down…just a little grey up there.” He gestured with a nod, referring to the hair at his temples and some of the stubble on his chin.

Tyler made a face of distress.

“Is it that noticeable?”

Josh’s eyes widened.

“Oh, no!” he said. “I didn’t notice until today.”

Tyler snorted and bent down to kiss his shoulder.

“Well, don’t remind me of it.”

“So no ‘daddy’?”

“Only if you really love that kind of stuff.”

Josh was only trying to give him his money’s worth. He didn’t care about that kind of kink in particular. Weird old guys liked that stuff. More submissive partners his age liked to call Josh that. Tyler’s interests didn’t seem to be all that specific.

Tyler came in the condom. He just hardly pulled out. Josh wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t.

Tyler tossed it over the side and encouraged Josh to sit on the edge of the tub and spread his legs.

Josh came with Tyler’s mouth on his thighs and hand wrapped around his cock. 

***

They didn’t use the sheets again.

Josh woke up to Tyler sitting up in bed, clicking away at his laptop. He stretched his feet along the bed — the dirtied part had only been the cover sheet — and laid his head against his arm.

“Hey,” Tyler said, glancing over quickly from his work. He continued typing.

“Hey,” Josh said. He nuzzled his way under Tyler’s arm to get a good look at the screen.

“This that guy’s book?” Josh asked. Tyler was writing out a lengthy comment on a bit in the middle of a paragraph. It was only two sentences, but Tyler was on his second paragraph.

“Yup.”

Josh hummed and looked at the clock on the corner of the screen. It was almost two in the afternoon.

“I slept for awhile,” Josh remarked.

Tyler ran a hand through Josh’s bed-flattened hair. Josh closed his eyes and rested against his torso.

“Not that long. Just about an hour.”

He finished typing and sent the comment, closing the computer in his lap.

“Did you sleep?” Josh asked.

“If I sleep all day, I stay up all night. Nights are only fun when you have something to do.”

Josh made a noise of understanding, soaking up the feeling of Tyler’s nails lightly scratching his scalp.

“You an early riser?”

Tyler shrugged.

“Only if I go to sleep early enough. I definitely was an early riser for awhile, but I can’t afford to go to sleep before eleven anymore. Too many things to do that I put off ‘til the last minute.”

Tyler’s hand found its resting place. Josh would fall asleep on him again if he didn’t keep him talking.

“I bet you’re up all night,” Tyler said. “Work all night, sleep all day.”

“A lot of people try and keep sex in the nighttime, so that’s when I hook up, at least. I don’t know what that’s all about,” Josh said. “Nothing to hide. We all do it. They say you have the best sex right when you wake up.”

Tyler knew he wasn’t suggesting anything, but he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“We’ll have to try that some other time,” he said. “I think I’m worn out for a little while.”

“Gettin’ old.”

The two laughed quietly. Tyler picked up the petting again. Talking about “next-time” was a force of habit, usually. Sometimes it bothered Josh when clients said it. It usually just meant they would hire him some other time in the future or nothing at all, but there were always the few who thought there was something more when there wasn’t. This didn’t feel like any of that. It was significant. Important. It made him uncomfortable in a different way, but it wasn’t enough to be afraid of.

Josh looked forward to a “next time”.

“I should probably go,” Josh said, sighing and holding the hand that laid in Tyler’s lap. “Need to go get new clothes.”

“Do you want cash or just a transfer?”

Josh blinked. He’d forgotten Tyler said he would pay.

“Oh, uh...just a transfer is fine.”

“Let me grab my phone, then.”

Josh kissed the back of his hand and let go, finally sitting up. He watched Tyler tap around on his phone for a moment until his own screen lit up. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“Whoa-wh- three-fifty?!” Josh laughed. “What, do I need to get like…one of those single eyeglass things or something?”

It was the first rich-man item he could come up with. He mimicked putting the glass up to his eye and winked the other.

“No monocles,” Tyler said. “You need shoes, right?”

He hadn’t thought of that.

“I guess I do.”

“And you probably need like...a shirt, slacks, and a belt, right?”

“All of that is over three hundred dollars? Even without like…a tie and stuff?”

“You can get a tie it you want; I have one for tomorrow. And I don’t know where you plan on going, but it could be that much,” Tyler said. Josh looked like he’d been caught stealing. “If you have a little extra, just get some more clothes! It’s nice to have options.”

He’d never spent that much money on clothes all at once in his life. He wondered how many times Tyler had.

“Tyler, are you sure that…”

His voice trailed off. Tyler gave him a reassuring smile.

“We did a lot more than seventy-five dollars worth of activities today. You deserve it.”

***

Josh’s family had never been well-off. They weren’t exactly poor growing up, but it was hard to come up with the cash to get all four children nice gifts every holiday. They got clothes when they needed them or whenever their mom had acquired a particularly nice coupon. They’d been trained to go straight to the clearance racks; Josh didn’t know what to do when there wasn’t one.

Brendon tagged along to make sure Josh didn’t try and get cheap stuff.

“Mr. Moneybags could probably smell it on you,” he said.

“The shirt he wore to breakfast was literally from Target; I saw the tag.”

Josh was coerced into a pair of seventy-dollar dress shoes. After that and the rest of his outfit, he still had about half of the money Tyler had given him. He didn’t know where to start.

“I wanna get something nice like...for him. Like, something only he’d know that I had.”

Brendon slurped at the pink drink he’d convinced Josh to give him a five for. He raised his eyebrows and smirked.

“Like a silk teddy?”

Josh rolled his eyes

“No. That’s the problem — I don’t know what to do!”

A child nearly crashed into the pair as they walked through the halls of stores. Josh patted their head as they stumbled their way back to their mother’s side.

“Is it really all that necessary that you like...repay him though?”

Josh made a face.

“I’m not trying to repay him. Repay him for what?”

“For making you Julia-fuckin’-Roberts!”

Josh snorted and shifted the bag handles between his fingers. They were just wandering the mall now.

“I just wanna do something nice.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you love him.”

Josh sighed and dipped into a storefront. Brendon followed behind, chuckling and continuing on with his fun-poking.

“Maybe you should get him a tie like she does in the movie!” he said, ducking under a high-hanging stack of jeans. “Get naked, sit with your legs up on the table, and throw it over your shoulder so he’s gotta come grab it.”

Josh started pushing around hangers on a rack.

“The tie thing is so overdone, though,” he said, pulling out a shirt to look at it, and shoving it right back onto the rack. “Plus, we both already have one. If he wants to do the tie thing, we already have some.”

“That’s only enough for your wrists and ankles, though,” Brendon said, tone implying that his next point was of utter importance. “You need a third one. If you don’t have a third tie, what’s gonna go over your eyes? That completes the look.”

Josh gave up his sifting through the racks. He looked around the store, hoping for some small glimmer of inspiration.

“How about you just bring something you already have?” Brendon suggested. “Wear a butt plug to dinner or something.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Get a tattoo of his name.”

Josh was getting tired. Brendon wasn’t giving up.

“I’ll give you a stick-and-poke when we get home.”

Brendon kept giving him absurd suggestions, but Josh wasn’t listening anymore. He had an idea. It was small, but it was better than anything Brendon had come up with. The only thing it really counted on was Tyler’s attention to detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> technically this was a day early so......ur welcome :-) as always, i love replying to comments so feel free to interact <3 i'm on tumblr under a very similar name but i'm gonna make it hard on u and not link it directly because i like the extremely vague and hardly effective #mystery of not handing out my socials


	3. Chapter 3

They were supposed to meet each other in the hotel lobby at six-thirty. Five minutes past that, Josh started to get nervous. He sat in a chair much too stiff for his liking. He shifted, crossing his legs and biting at his thumbnail as he scrolled through videos of people mixing paint. The smell of acetone still lingered on the pads of Josh’s fingers, the chemical taste spreading across his tongue. He figured his chipped nail polish didn’t help his look any.

“That’s a nice color.”

Josh nearly dropped his phone.

“Tha- oh, geez, the video?”

Tyler smiled down at him from over his shoulder. 

“The colors in your outfit are nice, too. Very neutral.”

Josh sighed and turned to him.

“Tried to look normal for once.”

Tyler offered a hand for Josh to get up from the chair, and he graciously accepted.

“Are we gonna be late?” Josh asked.

“They’ll forgive us when they see me show up with your stunning self,” Tyler said, linking his arm with Josh’s. “Let’s go before we’re even later.”

***

The dinner had gone off without a hitch. Josh hardly spoke, Ms. Vargas entertained and intimidated the life out of him, and Josh watched Tyler persuade this young lady and her literary agent to work with them in complete awe. Still, she never made a decision. Tyler had driven them home in frustration.

Despite all of Josh’s dismissals of Brendon’s ideas at the mall, he still ended the night with a tie around his wrists. Maybe Tyler did have a few specific interests.

“You changed your piercings,” Tyler observed.

That was Josh’s “gift”, but he didn’t really know how it was a treat for Tyler now that he was faced with it.

“Do you like them?” he asked, hopeful.

They were silver bars still, but these ones had small, white, imitation opals on the ends. They were his favorites. He never wore them.

“Love them.”

Josh smiled and leaned forward to kiss Tyler’s cock, opening his mouth, and dragging up his tongue to show off the matching piercing there.

“They look good on you,” Tyler added, running his hands through the neat, dark curls on Josh’s head. It was styled much nicer than he’d ever seen it, so Tyler almost felt bad messing it up.

Josh’s mouth worked at Tyler’s cock as best as he could until he got a hair pull out of him. He whined and drooled and wiggled his fingers helplessly behind his restraints. Tyler pulled him off.

“Wait right there.”

The younger man sat up straight on his knees, waiting patiently as Tyler removed the rest of his clothes. This was a very familiar situation for Josh, so he played the part well. Often he wasn’t stuck with the most attractive of men for the night, so he just acted the way he knew they wanted him to. Tonight, Josh was getting nerve chills. His anxiety was high, but he wasn’t scared — he was excited.

“Can you ride me with your hands behind your back like that?”

Josh’s heart did a leap.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Let’s find out.”

Tyler helped Josh up onto the bed and told him to get on his back. He needed to be prepared. Tyler’s head moving between his legs was the last thing Josh expected.

“Oh!”

Josh attempted to grasp at the sheets beneath him, moaning as he felt Tyler’s tongue work at his entrance. Rimming felt too intimate for most hookups, so he tried to avoid it. It wasn’t even anything he needed to swerve often either, really. Most people were afraid to do that kind of thing with a stranger. 

He was making too many exceptions for Tyler. He couldn’t bear to look at how earnestly he was eating him out; he had to move this along to try and honor his already breached boundaries. Still, he wasn’t going to act as if he didn’t like it.

Josh mumbled a request to ride him, Tyler agreed easily. He moved along with haste, giving Josh a generous amount of lube and a comfortably rigorous amount of stretching.

He made sure to sit up against the headboard so that he could help keep Josh balanced. He sat cross-legged, holding onto Josh’s hip with one hand as he helped guide himself inside. He spread more lube along the base of the condom as Josh pulled himself back up. It took a moment for him to get into a comfortable rhythm, but Tyler’s hands on his ass helped keep him moving.

It was slower than the other time he’d ridden him, but the effort alone was enough for praise.

“You’re doing so good, baby.”

Josh whined and closed his eyes in concentration, trying hard to roll his hips in the way he knew best. Tyler spread his ass as he pulled him slightly upward and gave him a playful slap, coaxing a small gasp from Josh’s open mouth. He slapped it again, a little harder this time. Josh fell onto his shoulder, moaning and pressing his forehead against him with skin that felt like fire. Another slap burned the same cheek. Josh cried into Tyler’s neck, ass clenching around him. Tyler kissed his shoulder.

Josh tried his hardest to move without the support of his arms. It was becoming harder with each bounce, but Tyler wasn’t going to let him fail. He lifted him off, encouraging him to get on his knees and lay his face against the pillow. Josh rocked back into Tyler’s hips, breath heavy and voice shaken as he focused on speeding up their thrusts. 

“Fuck- Tyler!” he cried out, fingers grasping at nothing. “God, fuck me!”

Tyler could still hardly get used to his porn voice, but he wasn’t going to ask him to stop. He kept slamming his hips in, eyes slipping closed as he got closer and closer, fingers digging into the skin of Josh’s hips. Josh was begging him to spank him. Tyler gave him a slap and a promise to give him more once he came.

Josh was dying to be touched; he needed Tyler to cum as soon as possible. He kept pushing back, moaning, and throwing a fit with his legs, and Tyler finally pulled out. He came in the condom and threw it somewhere he wasn’t confident he’d find right away.

Tyler gave them a brief moment to regain their breaths before giving Josh a pat on his ass.

“Come on,” he said. “Show me your hands.”

Josh rolled over and presented his wrists; Tyler untied them at his leisure. Josh sighed as Tyler held them together once more to smother them in kisses before letting him go.

Tyler moved to sit with his legs off the side of the bed and patted his lap. Josh bent over and laid his head on the mattress. Tyler made sure he could move easily against his thighs.

“You okay?” he asked.

Josh nodded.

“Yes; yes, I’m ready.”

Tyler placed his hand on Josh’s ass for reassurance, gently kneading his palm in.

“You want me to spank you?”

Josh nodded again.

“Will you cum like this?”

Josh nodded faster.

“Yes. Please.”

Tyler swatted his hand across the bottom of his cheeks. Josh flinched, rocking forward against Tyler’s thighs.

“Like that?” Tyler asked.

“Yes.”

Tyler brought his hand to the same patch of skin. Josh’s feet lifted off of the carpet.

“That good?” he asked again.

“Yeah,” Josh breathed. “Again.”

Tyler hit him three more times, the time in between each strike much shorter than before. He brought his hand down for a fourth time, hard enough to make him jump. Josh’s back arched as he cried out, legs bending up and toes curling.

“Fuck,” he said, nearly breathless.

Tyler wanted him to cum, but he was afraid it was going to take much longer than he’d originally anticipated. Josh could probably lay in his lap all night. As much as Tyler would like to say he could sit there for hours, he wasn’t immune to post-orgasm priority shifting. 

“Come on,” Tyler said, leaving a shallow slap. “You can use my thighs.”

Josh breathed a moan as he ground himself down into his lap.

“Do you want something else?” Tyler asked. “Want my fingers inside?” 

“Yes,” he said. “I-if you keep spanking me, please!”

Tyler smoothed his other hand along his ass.

“How many?”

Josh swallowed.

“Just two.”

Tyler pushed in two fingers and brought his other hand to a higher position on his ass. With continuous movement against Tyler’s thighs, it only took three, four more strikes until Josh came, sobbing out a moan into the hotel sheets.

Slowly, Tyler removed his fingers and rubbed the red skin beneath his palm. As Josh came down, he reached behind him and grabbed something from a nest in the blankets. Curious, Tyler’s hand slowed to a halt.

“Here,” Josh said, handing Tyler whatever it is he’d grabbed. “Take a couple pictures of my ass.”

***

Josh laid on the bed with a pillow shoved under his chin, towel around his neck, and scrolled through his phone. He smelled like Tyler’s shampoo; Tyler convinced him not to sleep with all of the sweat and product. 

Tyler laid beside him and watched the light from his phone change colors on his face as he scrolled through his feed.

“Good thing you know how to take a photo,” Josh said, glancing over with a smile on his face.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “It's already making its rounds! You’re on your way to becoming a famous photographer.”

Tyler breathed out a laugh and reached up to Josh’s shoulder and grabbed the end of the towel, wiping away a drop of water at his temple.

“Who knew my artistic debut would be from a picture of your ass for your porn blog?”

Josh snickered, bringing his tongue between his teeth and turning back to his phone. Tyler laid the towel back down and propped his elbow up onto his pillow.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Tyler said.

Josh’s eyebrows raised. He set his phone down on the mattress and looked over at Tyler.

“How free are you for the rest of the week?”

Josh blinked.

“Like...how often am I not working? I don’t have plans for, like, anything.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to bother you if you can’t work away from home.”

Josh’s head tilted in confusion.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I was wondering if you’d like to stay with me for the rest of the time I’m in LA.”

Josh’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“Ha!” he reached a hand halfway up to his mouth in case he actually started laughing. “Wh-what? Why?”

“It’s just a few more days; I’m supposed to leave on Sunday. I just have more things that I have to do with this conference that I was going to pay for you to go with me anyway-“ Tyler paused. “-And it’s nice to have someone around. After being with someone so long, it’s...refreshing to have someone waiting for you when you get back to your place. Even if it is for a short time.”

“Wait,” Josh said. He needed to get what he was saying straight. “So you want me to like...live here or whatever with you? And go to more dinners and stuff?”

Tyler nodded. Josh stared, confused smile showing on his face.

“Look...I’d love to be your play-husband for a week, but like...I dunno. You don’t have anyone else you could bring? Who are like…free? ‘Cause I cost money.”

Tyler shook his head.

“You did well tonight at dinner, and I like spending time with you,” he said, simple and frank. “I can’t come up with a single other person that it makes sense for me to ask instead.”

Josh’s heart was beating a mile a minute. He needed to bring himself back into the business mindset. He was almost ready to agree without discussing any price at all.

“If you really want me to be here with you night and day, it’s gonna cost ya,” he said, doing his best to keep his excitement out of his voice.

Tyler nodded, like it was an obvious statement.

“Name your price.”

He couldn’t just use the same amounts he was throwing at Tyler before. Those were just small amounts he knew he needed, like the average rate for the phone bill, or the rest of what he needed for a new coffee maker. He whipped out the calculator on his phone and tilted it away from Tyler’s curious eye.

“Twenty-five hundred. Plus whatever for meals and any time you want me to go get new clothes and stuff.”

Tyler still thought he was selling himself short, but there wasn’t much to say. He could pay Josh whatever he thought he deserved as long as it hit that mark. That, and Tyler could only dip into his savings so much before his bank account actually started to reflect the salary he was earning.

He shrugged.

“Sounds good to me. ‘Twenty-five hundred plus whatever’ it is.”

***

Tyler let Josh run by his apartment to grab things and let his roommate know what was going on the first morning. Josh had to nearly throw Brendon on the floor to wake him up.

“Wait- hold on,” Brendon said, hair wild from his pillow. “So he’s like…actually ‘Pretty Woman-ing’ you? Like, forreal paying you to hang out and be his goddamn trophy wife? For a whole week?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Dude. People don’t really do that.”

“Yeah, well it's happening!”

“Either love at first fuck is actually real, or he’s a real dumbass rich boy,” he paused. “Wait. How old is he?”

Josh snorted.

“Not exactly a ‘boy’.”

Brendon sighed and flopped back down onto his pillow.

“I can’t believe you got a sugar daddy and I’m here flipping burgers like I’m Spongebob fuckin’ Squarepants.” He started to mumble. “Like, two fuckin cents an hour. Smell like onions. Wear the same shit every day-“

Josh cut his pity party off short.

“Hey!” he said, more stern than he ever really was. Brendon hushed. “Are you done?”

Brendon rolled his eyes.

“Dude, I don’t know what the problem is. I just got us rent for the next few months. We can like...get actual food. We might even actually be able to use our savings accounts. This is a big deal! I feel like I just won a game show or something!”

Brendon scoffed.

“The bare minimum for competition shows is ten-thousand, everyone knows that. And didn’t she get, like, three in the movie? That was like...the eighties or nineties. With inflation, that’s like-”

“This isn’t a movie, Brendon!” Josh cried, disbelieving laughter in his voice. “This is real life!”

Brendon knew any real complaints he had were selfish ones, but he couldn’t resist giving him shit.

“Well, when you two fall in love and move out to like….Barcelona or some shit, just make sure you help me put out an ad for a new roommate, okay?”

Josh didn’t think he was being very funny. He got up from the edge of Brendon’s bed.

“You’re lucky I’m even offering to take one for the team here. I could just make you pay what you always do, but I’m letting you off the hook!”

Brendon sat back up.

“Look, dude; I’m sorry. If you think you’ll be okay, then go for it. But I’m telling you, you really gotta be careful! I know you’ve grown up and you’re all mature and stuff now, but you can’t stop being emotional all the time. You catch feelings easy. I just don’t want you to get sad when he leaves.”

Josh knew where he was coming from — and knew he was right — but couldn’t help but feel irritated. He knew Brendon was concerned for him deep down, but he was mainly worried about having to find a new roommate. Josh was a good roommate, but Josh didn’t want to be a roommate forever. He wanted a life. He wanted a spouse and a house and whatever else came with it, and he couldn’t do that with Brendon dragging behind him forever.

“I know,” was all he could really say.

“When did you say you were coming back?”

Josh sighed.

“He leaves on Sunday.”

“Well, I hope he blasts your ass out of commission by Friday.”

***

Tyler had to go somewhere for work. He left Josh with his phone number.

“Only for emergencies,” he clarified.

Josh sent him the picture of his ass from Tuesday. Tyler reprimanded him over text, but that was expected.

_you respond rly fast tho <3_

Josh said.

_i feel safe in case of a real emergency!  
except this is a real emergency_

He sent a bunch of emojis that were supposed to look like sweat. Tyler took a moment to respond, but it was worth the wait.

_Did the doctor tell you that you’d die if you don’t get fucked every twelve hours?_

_YESSS!!!  
you better hurry. when are you gonna be back?_

Josh waited for a reply with his fingers playing at the waistband of his sweats.

_Three hours_

Tyler said.

_Be ready when I get back; we won’t have much time before dinner. Find something nice to wear for tonight. Nothing really fancy. Less formal than last time. I’ll send you money for clothes._

Josh already had clothes. He might not have owned a suit until just the other day, but suits weren’t the only nice things in the world. Before he could reply, he got a notification from his cash app.

_Get something cute. You clean up nice._

Now he had to. Josh rolled over on the bed, giggling at his phone.

_thank you <3 i’ll be ready for you when you get back. want me to send a vid to prove it?_

_Please._

***

Josh took a cab out to a different place than he and Brendon had gone before, but found what he was looking for twice as fast. He decided to put his money from today toward a black bomber — one like the jacket Brendon took off of the coat rack at his work, but nicer and not stolen. This one was casual enough for daily wear and simple enough to pass as something “nice”. He was ecstatic. He used the rest of the money to get black jeans without massive holes in the knees.

He bribed the cab driver with a large tip to speed back to the hotel. He only made it with about three quarters of an hour to spare.

Tyler was in the car when he sent a video of him sitting on a dildo on the living room carpet. Josh was waiting on the floor when he walked into the room.

“Almost crashed my car trying to watch that,” Tyler said, removing his tie.

Josh snickered and waited patiently on the floor. He expected Tyler to sit on the couch, waiting with his legs spread for Josh to hop in his lap, but he went right to him on the ground.

“Not scared of a little rug burn, are you?” Tyler teased.

“Of course not!” Josh said, grinning as Tyler ripped open a condom wrapper. “What’s a little rug burn between friends?”

“Nice attitude.”

Tyler fucked Josh hard and fast on the hotel carpet, careful not to accidentally get stains where the housekeeper would cry if she found them. 

“Is where we’re going another business thing?” Josh asked, pulling on a fresh pair of boxer briefs.

“Just us tonight,” Tyler responded. “We just need to make our reservation, so let’s go.”

Tyler left Josh with a playful slap on the ass before heading into the bathroom.

***

They ended up being late anyway. Tyler tipped the hostess fifteen dollars for keeping the reservation for them. It wasn’t a great tip, but it wasn’t bad enough for her to be genuinely upset about it. She rushed them over to their table before any of the people waiting to get in could notice.

Tyler treated Josh to one of the nicest dinners he’d had in his entire life, and that included the one he needed to buy a suit for. They even got dessert.

“So what do you think about you guys’ deal with that author?” Josh asked, pressing a crease into his napkin. “You think she’s gonna work with you?”

Tyler set his glass down on the table and shrugged.

“I hope so. I’d love to work with her, but I don’t know what the other places offered. We might seem nice now, but who knows what she sees with us down the line.”

Josh hummed.

“Well, maybe she isn’t the kind of person to really think about that too much. Maybe she’s a real ‘in-the-now’ kind of girl.”

Tyler laughed to himself.

“You could be right. Authors like her tend to be of a...certain type of people, but anyone can be creative like that,” he said. “But I feel like anybody would have to think about the effect of a choice like that at least a little bit.”

“Well, yeah. A little bit,” Josh said. “But sometimes, thinking too much about the future isn’t right. Like, you can keep yourself from a really great opportunity just ‘cause you’re overthinking it. If it feels right now, it's probably fine.”

Tyler snorted.

“For now.”

Josh frowned.

“Yeah, for now. What’s wrong with that?”

Tyler smiled and took another sip of his water.

“Nothing. I just wish I could be like that. All I ever do is agonize over things no matter how small they might seem. I’ve got a permanent residence inside my head.”

Josh smiled behind his glass.

“Didn’t seem to really ‘agonize’ over anything when you picked me up.”

“Guess I do a good job of hiding it.”

Josh giggled and leaned back in his seat. He prodded the side of Tyler’s shoe with his own.

“You don’t seem to worry too much about the future,” Tyler observed. Josh almost rolled his eyes. “No, Josh, it’s really not always a bad thing.”

Josh huffed out a laugh, gently dragging the tip of his shoe along the sock on Tyler’s ankle.

“I might think about the future a little less than I should. That’s how I ended up here,” he confessed.

Tyler leaned forward on the table. He knew Josh was open, but he wanted to reflect his respect for privacy, just in case someone were to walk by and overhear.

“Aren’t you from like...Indiana? This is definitely a much different environment.”

Josh smiled.

“Ohio,” He said, sitting up. He leaned in to lessen the gap. “I ran off with my girlfriend after high school. She wanted to act. She got parts in a couple small things and dumped me when I got a delivery job. She said I was gone too much for us to work. Kicked me out and kept our cats.”

Tyler frowned and asked, “Could you not go back home?”

Josh shook his head.

“I couldn’t. I love my family and we have a good relationship but like...I just couldn’t. I wanted to prove that I could make it out here with just doing like...normal jobs. And they all have so much going on! I didn’t want to make them worried because I was dumb and ran away to California.”

Tyler nodded in understanding. Even if you aren’t a person who has issues with pride, there are certain things that just feel wrong to seek help for. Still, Tyler couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if Josh just went back to Ohio.

Josh continued on with his story. It wasn’t often he ever got to talk about it.

“I surfed some couches for a while. Then I went and stayed with my friend Ashley,” Josh said. “We were living together for about...eight months. She made tons of money doing sex work online, taught me all her tricks, and basically...passed it onto me. I haven’t heard from her since she left.”

“She didn’t kick you out, did she?” Tyler asked.

Josh shook his head.

“Our breakup was fine. We both realized we weren’t in it for the same things, so nobody’s feelings were hurt that bad. She helped me find a roommate before she moved out; that’s how I ended up with Brendon. We’ve been living together for over a year now.”

Tyler nodded, rolling the bottom of his glass in a circle on the table.

“We aren’t together, if that’s what you were wondering,” Josh said, rejoining the eye contact.

“You said you were single the first night, remember? And I’m assuming your roommate is around your age. I’d hope a guy my age wouldn’t have to room in a shitty apartment with a guy in his twenties.”

Josh scoffed.

“As if you’re even that much older than me! I doubt you’re even older than thirty-two.”

Tyler smirked.

“You really think I’m that old?”

“Oh my gosh, will you quit that?” Josh said, laughing, but still exasperated. “How old are you? For real.”

Tyler’s smirk loosened up into a smile. He moved his hand as if to say okay, okay and said, “I just turned thirty-one in December, which seems like one of the most unreal ages ever. Not thirty. Not even really ‘early thirties’. Just...an expired thirty-year old body.”

“Well, you’re hardly expired,” Josh said, voice just a bit teasing. “Maybe you’re just tired.”

“Oh wow,” Tyler said, grin going back to it’s smugger place. “Does poetry run in the family?”

Josh sat for a moment, perplexed at the dig.

“...Did that really rhyme?”

***

It was late when they got back to the hotel, but Josh wasn’t ready to go to sleep. He convinced Tyler to get in the bath with him again — he’d bought a bath bomb at the mall.

“It’s got real flower petals in it,” Josh said, showing off the softball-sized, turquoise thing leaving colorful dust on his fingers. Tyler took it from him to examine it. 

“Isn’t it cute?” Josh asked. “It’s got other colors and stuff on the inside.”

Tyler agreed and let it plop into the water. Josh climbed in and pulled Tyler with him.

They laid about in the bluish-purple water, overwhelmed by the floral scent of the tub. They talked about all kinds of nothing: Tyler being a writer but never publishing (and why that confused Josh), what college is really like, food, the internet, and all the different services Josh sells online. Josh grabbed a washcloth, some soap, and started washing Tyler’s chest.

“Making like...full edited videos is the most fun for me out of all of it, I think. I actually like doing it,” Josh explained. “It was really exciting the first time I put one up with Ashley, but making them myself is like...a whole other thing. It gets hard but like...it can be fun.”

“I’ve never done anything like that,” Tyler said. “My girlfriend back in Milwaukee was into sending nudes, but that’s about as close as I’ve gotten.”

“You’re from Wisconsin?” Josh asked, surprised. His accent seemed rather nonexistent, which usually proved to be pretty Midwestern. Wisconsin wasn’t usually a place where you could avoid telling speech patterns.

Tyler shook his head.

“Oh, no. I was born in New Jersey, but I’ve lived in tons of places because of my dad’s work. I went to elementary school in San Francisco, moved to Kansas City, got homeschooled for part of middle school, then ended up in Jacksonville for the rest of school. Wisconsin came later. I’m pretty much stuck in San Diego, now.”

“Huh,” was all Josh could really say. “That’s a lot.”

Tyler chuckled, turning his head to rest the side against Josh’s chest.

“My first roommate in college called me the ‘King of Nowhere’, but I can’t be. That’s way too corny. Also, that can’t even be a thing when Courage the Cowardly Dog exists.”

The laughter burst from Josh’s chest, unintentionally bouncing Tyler’s head along with it. Tyler just laughed all the same.

“Being homeschool during my formative porn-watching years didn’t exactly help lead me down the sextape route,” Tyler joked. “I watched cartoons like some kind of freak.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” Josh giggled. “When I was in middle school, the Kim Kardashian sex tape got leaked. There was no hope for me to not do it when I grew up.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s no avoiding that.”

Josh giggled even more, wadding the cloth up at Tyler’s chest. 

“I’m sure your stuff is a little more entertaining, though,” Tyler said. “I can’t say I’ve seen either, but you’re a little more seasoned in that field, right?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Josh said, a small shrug at his shoulders. “I’ve got a couple more of those kinds of releases under my belt.”

“What’s your most popular video?” Tyler asked. “I’m sure it leaves Kim in the dust.”

Josh made a thinking noise and brought his hand back into the suds, bringing the cloth against his skin once more. Josh wrapped his legs around Tyler’s waist, bent knees peeking out at the top of the water. 

“I’ve got a pretty popular dildo riding one. It’s kinda big and it’s this cute blue color. Like...periwinkle, or something. I’ve done bigger ones though, so I dunno what the big deal is.”

Tyler smiled.

“Must be you, then. What do you think you did that made people like it so much?”

Josh snorted.

“I dunno. It’s mostly the ones without my face that get the most money.”

Tyler wrapped his fingers around one of Josh’s ankles as if he were holding his hand.

“People want to forget that porn stars are still people. Faces are the most obvious reminder.”

Another sputtering laugh shook Josh’s chest.

“Guess that’s more comforting than being ugly!”

“I guess it should be, because you aren’t,” Tyler said. “Just think of one positive thing you noticed you did well with.”

“Normally people just ask gross stuff like, ‘ooh yeah did it feel good? You like showing yourself off like that?’” he said, putting on a comedically sensual voice. Tyler snickered and moved his hand from his ankle to one of Josh’s hands resting on his shoulder. Josh laced his drying fingers with Tyler’s wet ones. “I’m not used to anyone asking what I think about myself like...in a different way.”

“Well, I want to know what you think.”

Josh sighed and smiled.

“Well...uh, I guess I’m pretty energetic in that one. I look and sound like I’m having fun.”

“That’s probably it,” Tyler said, small smile playing at his lips.

“You haven’t even seen it!”

“No, you’re right, I haven’t, but I know exactly what you’re talking about. After our first night together, I couldn’t get your laugh out of my head the entire day that I went to message you,” Tyler confessed. “I’m completely serious when I say that you laughing just because you were having a good time was...my favorite part from the whole thing.”

“Really?”

Josh was getting shy. His hand tightened around Tyler’s.

“Really,” Tyler’s smile widened for the tease to follow. “Don’t start faking it for me though.”

Josh giggled and squeezed his legs around Tyler.

The two adjusted their positions in the tub, water sloshing as Josh’s legs stretched out. Tyler sat up higher in Josh’s lap, resting his head on his shoulder and bending his knees up. Josh swiped his tongue along his dry lips.

“Are most of your videos solo?” Tyler asked. 

Josh shrugged.

“It’s pretty even with solo and paired stuff. I did group stuff on Snap once,” he admitted. Tyler rose his eyebrow at this, and Josh frowned. “What, you’re gonna judge me now?”

“No, no! Not at all. I just didn’t expect it.”

“Me neither,” Josh said with a laugh. “It was like...toward the end of when Brendon and I were having sex. I had a lot of fun but I just...it got old pretty fast. Me and Brendon.”

“You two were just having sex, right? No feelings or anything?”

Josh nodded. Tyler made a noise of understanding.

“It was ruining our friendship. He didn’t understand when I would like...check to see if it was okay if I went on a date and stuff. We weren’t together and I didn’t love him like…romantically, but it still felt weird to me,” Tyler glanced up at whatever he could see of Josh’s face. Josh sighed. “It was just such a regular thing. We would fuck, like, almost daily and it started to feel like I was just part of his routine, you know? Like I was becoming less of his friend and less of like…a person. It started to make me feel bad about myself.”

Tyler held his hand under the water. Josh’s chest expanded and pushed Tyler up slightly, but he didn’t fight it. Tyler wanted to tell him that their situation wasn’t like that. That Tyler knows he’s a real person. That he considers him, after their short time together, a valuable new friend, no matter if this was all just a part of the job or not. But there was still a sense that, maybe, that wouldn’t be something he wanted to hear from a client. Josh could just be putting on this persona of an open, goofy, flirty guy just to make it more enjoyable for him. If the openness was fake, this guy was the most talented actor Tyler had ever seen. He was just going to have to shed all of his doubt on his own.

“I’m sorry if this feels like that to you,” was all Tyler said. His voice was gravelly when he spoke quietly; Josh noticed it the other day.

Josh smiled. His lip quivered a bit, but thankfully, Tyler paid no mind. A quick, warm kiss snuck into Tyler’s hair.

“I don’t mind. I like having sex with you.”

“Well, thank you very much,” Tyler said, grinning.

Josh grinned back against the side of Tyler’s head.

“You don’t make me feel bad. You’re nice. Polite. And you’re hotter than me.”

Tyler shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Oh, don’t try and flatter me. You’re the one who makes real money off of your looks.”

“Ha! Yeah, my body. Not my face. Nobody is paying for my face.”

“I’m paying for your face.”

Josh rolled his eyes.

“Tyler...you’d make bank with just your dick in the frame. Your face would like...destroy all of our careers. I’m serious.”

Tyler sat up so he could look Josh in the face.

“Are you trying to suggest I make something?”

“I wasn’t. But that’s a good idea.”

***

Josh set up a link for tips on his Snapchat story. He bet Tyler that if he could get two hundred dollars in tips by the morning, he’d knock off one hundred from Tyler’s final total.

“I need to make a few posts first. We can put however much you want on there, but I’m giving you a minimum of three clips and one picture. You don’t need to show your face.”

“I’m sure you’ve got those three planned already?”

Josh’s eyes flitted up from his phone to Tyler and smiled.

“One cute mirror pic of the two of us. I’ll put a sticker over your face. You can pick it if you want.”

“Should I do something, like...to prepare? I feel like there’s something I should do.”

Josh set his phone down. It seemed he had done all the preparations online that he needed. He sat thoughtful for a moment, looking Tyler over. He was standing off to the side of the bedroom, hands on his hips as he looked at Josh on the bed. Josh turned his focus to his sweatpants.

“We need to get hard first.”

Tyler shrugged and shook his head.

“Get me hard, then.”

Josh grinned.

“Sure thing. Do me, too.”

Josh reached down to start stroking him through the fabric of his pants. Tyler pulled his hips up against him.

“Just take them out.”

They stroked each other for a while, half-pulled-out, heads bumping against one another on occasion. Tyler kissed Josh’s neck and ran a hand along his chest, teasing his nipples and pushing on the piercings. Tyler got hard first -- he blamed the first-time jitters -- but Josh didn’t follow too long after.

“We’re good now, don’t you think?” Josh asked, a hint of laughter in his soft voice.

“Yeah,” Tyler breathed, coming off of Josh’s neck.

Josh tucked them back into their pants, grabbed Tyler’s hand, and lead them over to the full-length mirror by the closet. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up Snapchat, tapping on his memories. A flood of nudes and other explicit pictures and videos popped up on the first tap. Tyler tried not to be nosy, but he couldn’t help but look.

“Consider this a free preview,” Josh muttered, small smile on his face.

Swiping over to the stories section, Josh scrolled down to find one that began with a photo of him and the person he was filming with that day. He tapped on it and turned his phone more toward Tyler.

“Just something like this.”

It was a cute picture: Josh stood in front of the mirror with the other man’s arms wrapped around him. They both grinned behind the minimal shelter of Josh’s phone. This guy only covered his eyes — the sticker he chose was a pineapple. His full-toothed smile remained. The caption read, “partner for the evening!” with a smiley face sticker stamped small beside it.

“Just the same way?”

“If you want!”

He did.

Tyler grabbed Josh quick enough for him to lose balance, shocking him into a fit of giggles. Josh stumbled backwards into his embrace, phone directed toward the ground. Tyler smiled and laughed a bit too, encouraging Josh to direct their photo. 

“Don’t hide behind me!” Josh said, giggles still taking over his voice. He held his phone up and looked at the screen to try and move him in a favorable way.

Josh turned his body so it was facing sideways, taking up much less of the view so Tyler’s body could be seen.

“Here,” Josh said, handing over the phone. “You take it. You can cover your face with the phone that way.”

“If you really trust me to get a good one,” Tyler sighed, taking up the phone.

It didn’t take much time for him to get it so that the only part of his face visible was the corner of an eye and brow. Josh looked onto the screen and decided to move behind him instead, wrapping his arms around him and resting his chin on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and smiled, in a mock peaceful sleep. Tyler grabbed onto the arm around his waist and snapped a photo.

The two examined it right after; Josh gave his oohs and ahhs, but told him not to move anyway.

“One more. Flex a little bit. You’ve got something there on your arms and legs, at least.”

“Oh, I do? Thank God.”

Josh kneed him in the back of his thigh. They redid the photo, this time with slightly more muscle and a more comfortably settled Josh.

“This is so cute! You look so good!”

Josh took back his phone and added a caption.

my lovely assistant for the night

Three heart emojis followed, along with a sticker of a scattering of hearts placed above both of their heads. He messed around with filters until finding that black and white looked best. He saved it by itself before posting it to his story.

Josh said “cute” again before sinking to his knees. The rhythm of this was off, but Tyler couldn’t complain. Josh handed him the phone.

“Take a picture of me so I know your angle is okay.”

Tyler snapped a photo and turned the screen over to show him. Josh nodded and reached up to tap the “x”.

“I want this one of me pulling you out and, like, starting. I’m gonna put my other hand on your pants to tell you when to go.”

He held the phone in the approved angle, felt Josh’s hand, and held his thumb on the record button.

***

They watched the videos over and over. Tyler’s cock springing out of his pants. Josh’s pierced tongue all over him with a grin plastered on his face. A video of Tyler slipping inside of him, Josh’s face buried into the pillows, ass up in the air. Another video of Tyler inside of Josh, slowly driving in and pulling out, slapping his cock against his ass (this was Josh’s idea). Another video of Tyler burying himself to the hilt, staying there for a moment, letting Josh push against him. He fucked him like normal for a few moments, and ended the video with him stroking his cock. They never finished — they were too excited to watch the videos. Josh’s direction was expert. They laid naked and half-satisfied on the bed as Tyler flipped through the footage.

“How’s it feel to be a porn star?” Josh teased.

“I’m still hard.”

Tyler handed over Josh’s phone. Josh put it on the bedside table. 

“Tyler?”

He lifted his head.

“What is it?”

“Um...do you know when the last time you were tested was?”

There was an awkward pause.

“About a couple months ago. When my girlfriend cheated on me.”

Josh blushed.

“Oh...uh, I’m sorry. What did- but you’re-“

“I’m clean. I haven’t really been doing much since then either.”

Josh swallowed.

“Do you wanna just take the condom off?” he whispered, glancing down between Tyler’s legs. “It’s like- I mean you could just put a new one on. But I thought you might…”

“I thought you were the king of safety,” Tyler teased.

“With scary people, yeah. I also kind of swallowed some of your cum, and I haven’t died yet.”

Tyler chuckled and kissed his jaw.

“Fair point.”

He pulled out, threw away his condom, and found the lube once more.

“Are you sure this is okay?”

Josh nodded.

“I’m sure.”

Tyler bent down to kiss his jaw, sliding his hands up into Josh’s. Their fingers laced immediately. Josh slowly rose his legs back up, giving Tyler a place to move back in. He parted from his kisses, unlinking one hand to guide his cock back inside. Josh moaned, toes curling on his back as Tyler buried himself once again.

“God,” he breathed. “Why do you always feel so fucking good?”

He started off slow, dragging himself out and pushing back in as deep as he possibly could. Josh’s skin was on fire. Tyler knew the feeling wasn’t much different from when he wore a well-fitted condom -- he knew it had to be psychological -- but the change was enough to trigger a full-body blush. They kissed and kissed all over each other’s cheeks, jaws, necks, and ears. Avoiding one another’s lips was an expert activity.

The two of them forgot about pulling out.

Tyler apologized over and over again, despite knowing neither of them were in danger of disease or pregnancy. Maybe it was because he didn’t ask for permission. He felt like he broke Josh’s trust.

Josh wanted so badly to kiss him.

Instead, he held him close and asked him to take a picture of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember to actually practice safe sex. i know i said i was gonna shut up in the notes but i can't


	4. Chapter 4

Before leaving the next morning, Tyler left Josh with another set of instructions.

“We’re going to a picnic tomorrow afternoon. It’s nothing super important or formal. I’ll send you some money in a minute,” he said, and walked out the door.

Josh picked up his phone as soon as he heard the door close in the other room. He swiped away a few disgusting notifications from people replying to his posts -- there was a difference between compliments and sexual harassment -- and went straight to his contacts.

“...Hello?”

Brendon was forcibly ripped from a deep sleep. He didn’t usually rise until about noon.

“I let him cum inside. On accident, but we ditched the condom and he came inside.”

Josh chewed on his nail as he waited for a response.

“...Cool?”

“Brendon!” Josh cried. “This is serious!”

“When was this? Just this morning?” he asked.

“Last night.”

“You still have time to take some Plan B.”

Josh groaned.

“Would you stop?! I was fine last night, and then-“

“-You woke up this morning feeling weird.”

“Yes! Like this is all moving too fast!”

Brendon sighed on the other line.

“But is it even supposed to move anywhere in the first place?”

“I- no,” Josh sighed too. “Not really.”

“Then don’t worry about it. He’s paying you, like, a million dollars; bareback seems fair to me.”

Josh switched to another nail. Brendon continued on.

“Honestly, at this point, I don’t know why you aren’t letting him kiss you. ...You aren’t, right?”

“No! No.”

“Didn’t think so. But if he got to nut in you on, what? Day two? I don’t know what’s left. If you’re so worried about like...feelings, do what you think you have to. I just think that putting so much importance on these things and making them taboo is messing you up.”

“...You really think so? I dunno...I feel like if I just like…let everything go, my brain isn’t gonna be able to keep up.”

Brendon snorted.

“I don’t think you have much else to let go of, dude.”

Josh groaned and ran a hand through his hair. Brendon spoke up again.

“It’s not wrong if you like him, you know. He probably likes you too. I know I was joking about it before, but what you’re doing right now is just gonna fuck you up if you’re both afraid of actual feelings. You know that.”

“Okay, but he’s only here on a business tr-“

“Just stop worrying about it. Fucking people for money doesn’t automatically rule out fucking people for, like, love. Do what you think is right — you always end up fine in the end. At least you’ll be able to pay for a nice wedding. I’m going back to sleep.”

Josh apologized for waking him and hung up. He sat up against the headboard, pulled his knees up to his chest and held onto his feet through the sheets. He felt dumb. But Brendon was right — all of this only felt like a big deal because he was making it into one. It wasn’t as if Tyler was the first person he had unprotected sex with. And he didn’t care last night — he was the one who asked for him to get rid of it.

He was worrying too much.

***

They ordered in that night. All of the running around the city made Josh tired as it is, but all of his worrying made it worse. Josh fell asleep before they could even touch each other, and woke up at nearly three in the morning to an empty bed.

Josh sighed and dragged himself out of the sheets, squinting his eyes at the light of the living room when he opened the door.

Tyler looked up from his laptop.

“Hey.”

Josh scratched his head and walked over to the place where he was sitting.

“You’re still working? It’s almost three, dude.”

Tyler closed the lid of his laptop and gave Josh his full attention. Nothing was comparable to the sight of newly-awakened Josh — only in his shorts, hair messed up, hard from sleep, and ready to fall back to bed any moment. He was cute. He was built. He made Tyler wish he worked out more.

“I’m not working anymore.”

Tyler wrapped his arms around Josh’s waist, pulled his face to his torso, and pressed a kiss to his abdomen. Fingers threaded themselves in thick brown hair — the grey was only on the sides. It was nothing but an unfortunate draw from the punnett squares. Or stress. He was up at three in the morning doing edits — stress was most likely.

“Aren’t you tired, Tyler?” he asked softly, turning his hair between his fingers.

“I could sleep-“ Tyler turned his head up to face him. “-unless you’re offering something else.”

Josh shrugged, small smile playing at his lips.

“I wasn’t really, but that’s cool too. I’m fine with some morning sex.”

“We have to go back to bed for that to technically qualify as morning sex.”

Strong arms pulled at Tyler’s upper body, helping him out of his chair and back to the bedroom.

Josh stripped Tyler down all the way — he hated sleeping in socks — and tossed all of his clothes in an easily accessible pile next to the bed. There was no rush.

Tyler asking Josh to fuck him this time felt just as controversial as a kiss. 

“Are you- how long has it been since you’ve bottomed?”

Josh didn’t know if he’d had any other experience with men other than his old boyfriend from college. He didn’t know what went on at their place.

Tyler licked his lips.

“It’s been awhile.”

“No dildos or anything? Fingers? Anything?”

Tyler shrugged.

“I cleaned in the shower earlier.”

“Like-“

“-Yeah.”

Josh swallowed. 

“Okay. Guess that counts for something.”

He thought about switching before, but Tyler was too good for him to complain about his position. Now that Tyler was there, lying beneath him, asking for it, he couldn’t believe he let him get away with the same role every time.

Lube dripped onto the sheets when Josh poured it onto his fingers — he wasn’t quite as careful as Tyler. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was the sight of Tyler’s thick thighs spread for Josh’s hands. It was tight and Josh’s fingers were thick, but Tyler wasn’t softening in the slightest. He stayed hard and patient.

Josh was nervous taking off his shorts.

He used a condom to avoid more messes.

“Are you sure about this?”

Tyler smirked.

“What? Think I’m scared?”

Josh let out a breath of a laugh. Tyler’s smirk loosened.

“I want you. I mean it.”

Josh nodded and licked his lips, squeezing lube into his palm and slicking his cock as best as he could. When he started to push in, Tyler’s chest rose and eyes fluttered closed as he buried his head in the pillow. Josh could hardly breathe. 

He moved in farther and farther until Tyler’s eyes opened, once the head finally pushed into the area his fingers couldn’t reach. Tyler gasped, chest collapsing as Josh pushed in until his hips were up against his ass

“Oh! Jesus- Josh…”

“You okay?”

Tyler nodded and put a hand up on Josh’s arm.

“I’m fine.”

Tyler swallowed and brushed his thumb along the freckled skin of Josh’s shoulder. Tyler felt sorry for the people who’d never see it; a phone camera only shows so much. 

Tyler reached between his legs and took his cock in hand, slowly stroking himself as he coaxed Josh into moving. They were too tired to go fast even if they wanted to. The hand on Josh’s shoulder moved down to his hips, feeling the slow roll move his fingers. 

Josh bent down to kiss at Tyler’s neck, jaw, ears, coming dangerously close to lips once again. The feeling of Tyler’s breath ghosting over his lips was enough to make him weak in the knees. 

“It’s okay,” Tyler mumbled.

Josh couldn’t tell what he was referring to.

Tyler’s hand moved farther back, grabbing a fistful of Josh’s ass, hissing and moaning as Josh’s thrusts got harder and harder. Fingers raked up from his ass, up his back, and up to his shoulders. 

“You’re so good,” Josh breathed. “You feel so good.”

Tyler reached his head up to kiss at Josh’s neck, sinking his teeth in where it counted. Josh’s hips stuttered as a heavy whine spilled from his throat, bringing both hands to Tyler’s ass with a shallow slap. A string of saliva broke fast as Tyler’s head fell back onto the pillow, deep moans hitting the pit of his stomach as Josh lifted his hips from the bed, thumbs spreading him wide and fingers pressing into the firm flesh beneath.

Josh came inside the condom, but Tyler could still feel it. He wish he’d stayed to ride it out — the twitches and his thoughts alone could have brought him to the edge — but he pulled out and laid Tyler’s hips back down. Moving down farther into the bed, Josh settled himself in between Tyler’s legs. Tyler let go of his cock and let Josh take over.

Tyler watched Josh use his tongue and hollow his cheeks around him until he couldn’t take another second. He warned Josh he was going to cum, but he didn’t pull away. He took every bit of it down his throat.

“I uh...I didn’t think you swallowed.”

Josh snorted and leaned over the side of the bed, grabbing their clothes from off of the floor. He handed Tyler a box of tissues on the way down.

“Is that not okay?”

They dressed quickly and settled back into bed. Josh wiggled his body back against him. Tyler’s arm wrapped loose around his body; his chin sat on Josh’s shoulder. Josh turned his head toward Tyler’s just enough for their noses to touch.

“If that’s what you want to do, I’m not gonna stop you,” Tyler said with a smile. “Thanks, by the way.”

Josh frowned.

“For what?”

“For taking care of me. You really don’t have to do that.”

Josh shied away a little, resting his head back down on the pillow. Tyler kept his face by his.

“Well,” Josh said. “I’m not just gonna let you get hurt if you can avoid it. You need to stop working so late. And if you mean like...sex...you can’t really rush anal.”

Tyler snickered and laid a big kiss on Josh’s cheek. Josh giggled and pressed his face into the pillow.

“Try and act like you don’t really care all you want! I’m gonna appreciate you whether you like it or not!”

Josh held onto the hand Tyler had wrapped around his waist.

“I can’t help it if I’m nice! Would you rather I be mean to you?”

Tyler laughed and laced their fingers together. Josh tried to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I didn’t know you offered those kinds of services,” Tyler teased.

Josh shook his head. It was getting closer to four than he cared to know; it was much too late.

“Quit flirting and go to sleep. We have a big day or something tomorrow, right?”

“Something like that.”

***

The picnic was outside at some park. Tyler told Josh that this was the event that signaled the conference was coming to an end — there was only tomorrow left. This was just a “fun” thing to thank everyone for participating. 

It was just a bunch of editors and interns talking and drinking wine in the grass. Josh didn’t know why he was there.

“You look good if you have a date,” Tyler said. “If anyone talks to you alone, they’ll be directed to me. It’s all about networking. And Vargas asked me to bring you.”

Ms. Vargas met them near the entrance — she had Tyler text her as soon as they were there.

She greeted Josh, but didn’t feel the need to waste her breath on Tyler. She had things she needed to do.

“Miss Carney is here. You better find her and talk to her today, or else I don’t want to see you at our meeting on Monday. Got it?” she said, red-painted nail pointing in his face.

“Yes ma’am. Got it.”

“Get out there and talk to people before I bring them over here myself.”

They watched her speed back over to a crowd across the way. Josh looked at Tyler, concerned.

“She’s just...there’s a lot going on with her.”

Tyler brought Josh out to the main area. Tyler talked to people he knew. Josh talked when he had to. Eventually, someone tried to pull Tyler away. 

“I’ll be right back,” he told Josh. “I have to talk to Miss Carney. Just call me if something happens.”

And he left.

Josh was on his own for a few minutes before wandering off to the wine tent. He wasn’t usually a wine person, but it beat standing out in the open by himself. Someone might talk to him.

The wine tent was packed, to his dismay. There were cutouts in the fabric that acted as a sort of window — it was filled to the brim with tipsy women and pretentious-looking men. Josh realized he was probably better off not drinking anyway.

Just as he was about to wander off somewhere else, a familiar voice brought his attention back toward the tent.

“Josh?”

A woman standing near the entrance started up the small hill separating them.

“Josh!” she cried, disbelieving grin on her face. “Oh my God! What are you doing here?!” 

The closer she got, the better Josh recognized her. She was always wearing wigs, so her hair was never a giveaway. He could never forget her face. Or her body. Or the way her excitement upon seeing him seemed to explode from her every single time, even after they’d broken up.

Josh swallowed nervously.

“Ashley?”

She was there, right in front of him, pulling him into an embrace that felt like hundreds of years had passed since he last felt it.

“You look amazing,” he said, voice muffled by the cotton of her blouse.

She pulled away, grin still all-consuming.

“I love your hair,” he said. It was short and dyed a platinum blonde color — nothing like he’d seen before. She had tons of different wigs, but she was only ever sporting a long, blue lacefront, or her honest, shaven head. He’d never seen her with real hair.

“I love how clean you look! God- Josh, I’m so surprised to see you here. Were you a part of the conference?” she asked.

“Oh!” he laughed, suddenly even more anxious. “Uh...no. I’m here with someone. Are you? Part of the conference thing, I mean.”

She nodded, close-lipped smile keeping her over-excitement at bay.

“I’m here on an internship. I applied in my second semester and now I’m like...getting paid to come here and learn about publishing.”

Josh’s eyes almost bugged out of his head.

“Ashley, that’s amazing! You must be working so hard. Good job, dude. I’m so proud of you — really.”

Ashley pouted, hands clasped under her chin.

“Thank you! ...God,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry that I just...completely fell out of touch. It’s just-“

“-You had to focus. I get it; it’s okay!”

She crossed her arms over her chest. She looked just as professional in her office clothes as she did in her video costumes. She always looked so confident.

“So what are you doing here? What have you been up to?” she asked, choosing not to dwell. She wanted to make the most out of this meeting.

Nothing had ever made Josh ashamed to tell her anything, especially when it related to sex work. Now, Josh almost felt the urge to lie.

He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“I’m here for…for work. I’m with a guy here. He’s an editor.”

Ashley gave a half smile.

“Same old work? Or something different?”

Josh breathed a laugh.

“Same old work, for the most part.”

She smiled, support and reassurance the only intention in mind. Josh still felt the non-existent pity.

“He nice at least? He’s not your boyfriend, is he?”

The suggestion in her voice showed just how ready she was to tease him, tell him how bad he was for breaking the rules. He couldn’t even give her that.

“Oh, no. He’s nice. He’s great, just...he’s just some guy who picked me up last week. I’m supposed to be with him ‘til Sunday, so...at least I’m all booked for awhile.”

The look on her face was a bit funny.

“Least you’re booked?” she repeated. “You don’t seem too excited about it.”

Josh shook his head, anxious laughter taking over again.

“It’s nothing, seriously! He’s- he’s great and I love...spending time with him. He’s a very smart guy. It’s just, um,” he paused, trying to get his thoughts out. “Well, you...you know how hard this can be, being with people in situations like this,” he said. “I hate acting like a robot, so I don’t. I probably should though.”

“I never took anything off-camera, but I know what you mean.”

He forgot. He was the only one who was an actual prostitute. She put a friendly hand on his arm.

“Hey, don’t worry so much. If it was a situation you didn’t like, you’d get out of it. You’re a strong guy. You know your limits!” she said, smiling, giving Josh a reassuring shake, and crossing her arms again. “You’ve got a lot going for you.”

“Me?” he asked in disbelief. He couldn’t even imagine what she was referring to. “I get messages, like, every week asking where Halsey went. All I could say was ‘school’, but now I know there’s more to it. You’ve really done a lot.”

She let out a shy laugh and scratched her scalp. Her nails were long, black and pointed — the only time she used to get that length was when she knew it was okay with her content lineup for the next few weeks. Now she could do whatever she wanted.

“They could like...check my blog.”

Josh shook his head.

“You know people on the internet can’t read.”

Ashley laughed and said, “That’s true! And I’m sure you’ve been busy. It’s hard for a guy in the business, especially the way you’re doing it. You don’t have as big of a pool of clients. Have you been doing alright with it lately?”

Josh nodded.

“Yeah um- it’s alright. We’re up-to-date on rent, so I can’t really complain about that.”

Ashley pressed her lips together and nodded. She didn’t really know how to bring it up without sounding concerned, but she only wanted to look out for him. Despite the distance, he was still one of her dearest friends.

“Well I mean...I just...was wondering since you said you were here with a guy. I didn’t know how often you were going out, too. Along with everything else.”

Josh shrugged.

“It’s just how it is right now. I’m fine, like...this guy is treating me fine and paying me a lot. And I’m alive, so…”

The conversation was closing up more than he really meant it to. He didn’t feel like he had anything impressive or exciting to share, and she was trying not to cross any lines. Asking passive questions about his work was just about as risky as she’d go.

Luckily, Josh could see Tyler coming from the opposite direction of the tent.

“Oh! That’s- my um, my...guy is coming. I should probably get going.”

Ashley peeked over in the direction of his gaze and rose her eyebrows. She giggled and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“I’ll see you around, okay? Text me or call me if you ever wanna talk again. I’m always here for you.”

Ashley waved and headed back down to the tent, lightly stumbling on the grass with the heels of her boots. A woman was waiting for her, laughing as she made her way down. Josh sighed and looked back over to Tyler. Swallowing the lump forming in his throat, he walked back down to meet him.

“Hey,” Tyler said, reaching for Josh’s hand. He accepted without thinking and started to walk. “Who was that girl you were talking to?”

“That was, uh,” Josh cleared his throat. “That was Ashley.” 

Tyler’s eyebrows raised.

“Your sister?”

“Oh! No, um….my ex.”

“Your ex? You mean the one who...like, your most recent girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s she doing here?”

Josh’s hand was starting to sweat in Tyler’s.

“She’s here for this internship she got at school. She’s studying communications and marketing...so they paid her to come and work and stuff.”

“Huh,” Tyler said. “That’s definitely something that would work for her, especially if she’s as successful as you’ve said. You can’t exactly put all of that on your resume, but that’s great.”

Josh smiled weakly. He knew Tyler didn’t mean anything by it, but he couldn’t help but hear it in a different tone. As if it would work — for someone like her. 

For someone like him.

His hand twitched in Tyler’s. They stopped walking together.

“Hey,” Tyler said. “What’s wrong?”

Those were the words that did it. They always were. It started to get foggy, even though the Los Angeles sun was shining as bright as always. Josh’s voice was choked up too.

“I just want to go. Um-“ he tried to quirk up the side of his mouth in a faux smile. “I can just go wait in the car, actually, it’s really-“

“No it’s-“ Tyler glanced around the crowd. He couldn’t leave so easily, but he wasn’t going to let Josh be alone and upset. He didn’t even know what happened to set him off.

Tyler dug his keys out of his pocket and grabbed Josh’s hand. He took Josh’s fingers and closed them around the ring.

“Go ahead and go out to the car. I can’t leave without saying anything, but I’ll go find Vargas and Miss Carney as fast as I can.”

Josh swallowed and looked down at their hands. Tyler still held onto his closed fist. He nodded.

“I’ll be over there as soon as I can and we’ll go. I’ll just tell them you aren’t feeling well, and I’ll be right back, okay? You know where the car is?”

Josh nodded again. Tyler squeezed before letting go and leading him off toward the direction of the lot.

***

They drove home in near silence. The only thing saving it was the radio playing quietly in the background — Josh had turned it on while he was waiting. He didn’t bring his headphones. He really wished he had his headphones.

He wasn’t crying when Tyler got in the car. Tyler knew better than to ask about it right when he got in.

“We’ll be home soon,” Tyler said, instead.

That wasn’t home. Josh couldn’t even open his mouth to correct him.

They reached the hotel after what seemed like hours of holding in tears. Josh thought it would probably be fine if he’d cried in the car, but he never knew how anyone would react. Crying in the car was always worse, anyway. None of his friends ever had great tints on their windows

So he saved it for Tyler’s room.

“What’s going on, Josh?”

That was all it took for the dam to break.

“It’s nothing,” he whispered. He could only whisper right when he started to cry. He had to regain his voice.

“Josh,” Tyler said, gently. “It’s something. I want to know what happened.”

Josh let out a shaky breath.

“I just- I just was thinking about stuff.”

Tyler sat with his legs spread in his chair, fully turned toward Josh. Josh tried to crawl into himself — he was all wrapped up in his own limbs. He wouldn’t dare look at Tyler, no matter how close and direct he was.

“What stuff were you thinking about?”

“It’s just, uh-“ he sniffed. “It’s just that I’m very confused? I’m so...confused about where I’m going in life. And when I talked to Ashley about school I just...I just realized that I have no goals.”

He tried to pause and let Tyler take over, but he waited patiently for him to pick it back up himself. Josh sighed and wiped his cheeks.

“Once I’m too old for all of this, I don’t have plans. I can’t go to school! If I did, I don’t...I-I don’t even know what it would be for!” 

He let out a frustrated sigh. 

“Like...I’m a fucking prostitute, for God’s sake. I could have been, like, a waiter an-and did the video stuff on the side, but I thought this was better for some reason! Hardly any of the girls I know that do videos and shit actually hit the streets. Because it’s scary!” his voice was rising. “I fucked up. Because I don’t think! And I don’t have talents or-or interests or skills or anything other than fucking and-and working fucking iMovie! I can’t-“

His voice cracked.

Josh couldn’t stop crying. Tyler reached out to grab the hand that was wound so tightly around his waist. Josh squeezed his fingers. 

“Hey...come on, it’s okay,” Tyler said, squeezing him back. “You’re gonna be okay.” 

The sobs got louder, and Josh’s hand trembled in Tyler’s. 

“Josh,” Tyler said. “You’re doing honest work. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

There were tears all over his cheeks and neck; he wasn’t even trying to wipe them away. He just let the tears fall and his nose run.

“I don’t fucking- I don’t care if people think it’s- like it’s fucking empowering! Like cool for you if it’s working, but not for me! Like I’m proud of my body and my sexuality and everything but it’s like… that’s it! This is all I have going for me and I thought I was okay with it but I’m not. I’m not, I’m...I’m just…”

Josh brought his head to the table, sobbing breathlessly into his arms. He felt pathetic. 

“Hey,” Tyler said softly putting a hand on his quivering back. The fabric of his shirt was warm and damp — he was sweating. “Josh, come on and look at me.”

Josh started saying muffled incoherencies; Tyler rubbed circles into his back and repeated himself.

“Look at me.”

Josh slowly sat back against his chair, shamefully wiping the snot and tears from his face. His jaw was still quivering. Tyler moved his hand to the side of his cheek, warm and wet with tears. He used his thumb to wipe away a fresh one.

“You’re only twenty-three, Josh. You have so much time and so much more potential than you realize.”

Tyler waited patiently for a response, but Josh had become despondent.

“You’re going to be okay. I promise. Everything gets better, I know,” he repeated himself for emphasis. “I know. You just need time to figure things out.”

Josh’s voice turned into a whisper. He couldn’t even look at Tyler now.

“I don’t know how much time I can give, though.”

Tyler grabbed Josh’s face with both hands.

“Josh- Josh look at me,” he moved in closer. “Look at me.” 

Josh didn’t have a choice. He had to look.

“You don’t need to go to college or have an impressive career or be rich and famous or change the world. You just need to be happy and alive.”

Josh’s voice was barely audible.

“Are you?”

“I’m getting there,” Tyler said. “It took me about seven or eight years from where you are...but I’m better now than I have been. And the time flies by — you just have to stick it out. If you really want to turn your life around, you will.”

Tyler put a hand on his cheek. Josh sighed.

“You’ll be okay. You’re already okay.”

Josh reached his hands up to Tyler’s neck, leaned in, and pressed his lips to Tyler’s. 

Tyler didn’t even need time to process. He kissed him back, sincere and warm against the tear-damp skin of his lips and cheeks. Josh kept crying, but Tyler didn’t mind. He just scratched at his scalp on the back of his head, petting his hair and dragging his thumb across his cheek.

Josh pulled back, a soft sound coming from the disconnect. He pressed his forehead against Tyler’s.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Tyler said. He kissed him again, soft and sweet. “I would’ve let you kiss me days ago.”

Josh let out a breathy laugh, leaning away from Tyler and wiping his eyes. Tyler helped dry his neck.

“Maybe I should have.”

***

They ended up on the couch in sweats and pajamas. Tyler didn’t want to force Josh to go out, even if he said it was okay. Tyler suggests they order pizza.

“Not very extravagant, I know.”

“You could have said we’re getting dirt and I’d still be having fun. Pizza is perfect.”

They sat with the box between them — Tyler reaching to his left, hunched over his laptop with his glasses on, Josh reaching to his right, lounging against the armrest.

Josh had put on a sci-fi show about children in the 80s, but he decided didn’t want to play it if Tyler wasn’t going to pay attention. Tyler tried to apologize; he was almost finished working, but Josh waved him off and searched for something else. He picked another Netflix original — this one, Tyler knew.

“You like Black Mirror? Have you seen any of the new season?” Josh asked. “It came out back in December.”

Tyler shook his head.

“I haven’t had time.”

“Then pick a number one through six- well, uh...not three. Any other number. You know they aren’t in any order.”

Tyler pursed his lips.

“Uh...four.”

“Hang the DJ it is.”

Tyler finished up his emails within the first ten minutes of the show. Josh fell asleep on the couch within the next ten. Usually, Tyler would bring him to bed, but the show had caught his attention. There was a deeper meaning — something about the mechanics of dating website matches — but the general concept was what kept him watching.

Relationships with an expiration date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you aren't looking up "hang the dj black mirror watch online" right now ur a fake fan


	5. Chapter 5

Tyler didn’t think Josh had ever looked better than he did now, flipping through his phone, sitting on the couch in a hoodie and jeans with giant holes in the knees. He kneeled at his feet and laid a kiss on the one crossed on top.

“Oh, hey,” Josh said, stupid grin taking up as much space as it could.

Tyler stayed on the floor for a minute.

“Hey.”

Josh wished they would have kissed sooner. He hadn’t made out with someone like this — on a couch, sober — in what felt like years. It was one of the things he truly missed about being with someone.

“I’m going to miss this when I have to go back to an empty apartment,” he said, head resting on Josh’s chest. “It’s too easy to get used to something like this.”

Josh ran his fingers along his scalp.

“You don’t even have a cat? You seem like a cat guy.”

Tyler hummed in the negative.

“No cats. I used to have a dog with an ex-girlfriend, but she hated me.”

Josh giggled.

“Your girlfriend or the puppy?”

“The _dog_. She was an old rescue that hated men. Some guy must have done something to her because all she did was bark at me and refuse to eat when I fed her.”

“You should try a cat,” Josh said, slowing the hand on Tyler’s head. “I think you’d like having something running around the house again.”

If this wasn’t the last day of their agreement, Tyler would have easily let this be a day reserved for sleeping. Tyler was starting to wonder if laying around would be nearly as good by himself anymore.

Tyler spoke up.

“We should go on a date. A real one.”

Josh’s fingers stopped moving on Tyler’s head.

“What, like, today?”

“I have all day free. We can do whatever you want.”

“Anything?” he asked. Josh didn’t know where to start. “Like, do you want me to come up with an activity...or a place to eat...or…”

“Anything besides sleeping and sex. We’ve done a lot of that,” Tyler said, shifting into a sitting position. He sat halfway on Josh’s legs, but Josh didn’t mind.

“I’d say we could go to the beach, but like…that’s too much driving. I don’t wanna take up the whole day in the car just for the beach.”

“Isn’t Santa Monica only a half an hour away? That’s no big deal.”

“Traffic is,” Josh said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Traffic is always a big deal.”

Tyler reached for Josh’s knee again, laughing through his nose at the startled jolt of his leg. He mumbled an apology for scaring him and continued holding on. His hand crept along the skin of his thigh beneath the denim, messing up his leg hair even more than it already looked growing in. It was slightly coarse; Tyler figured he might have shaved them not too long ago. He stayed trimmed below the belt, but all of the rest of his body hair was comfortably soft.

“I don’t know what we can do without being in the car,” Josh said, taking Tyler out of his trance. “That’s the problem.”

“I don’t care about being in the car,” Tyler said. “If you’re there, at least I’ll be in good company.”

Josh gave him a half smile and let his head shift over to lay a cheek against the pillow, shifting his gaze to the television screen. It was blank save for a blurred reflection of the pair on the couch. They looked much too comfortable for their own good, but Josh couldn’t bare to pry Tyler’s arms away.

“How come you wanna do something special anyway?” Josh asked Tyler’s reflection. “Most guys would just wanna fuck until their rent was up on the room.”

“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “Maybe I think we deserve something special every once and awhile. Especially you.”

Josh couldn’t help but become bashful. He let out a laugh and squirmed a little, embarrassed at Tyler’s hands rubbing reassurement into his skin.

“I thought you were gonna make a joke about being old again,” he said.

Tyler smirked and leaned up close to his face, slipping into a grin as Josh tried to fall back into the cushions. Teasing was sure to follow, but the form it would take was always a surprise. The teeth holding back his lip kept his giggles in his chest, but they were getting increasingly harder to stifle as Tyler got up to his ear.

“I just left the part about my dick being broken out of it.”

Laughter erupted from both men, Josh’s loud and out into the open room, Tyler’s buried in the crook of Josh’s neck. His arms wrapped around Josh’s waist, squeezing a silent apology for the bad jokes.

This was too much to leave behind.

***

Josh suggested they pack the car now so that they didn’t have to worry about it later. He still had some clothes and a toothbrush and other small things in the room, but he insisted it would be easier this way. So they put Josh’s single duffle in the backseat.

They ended up in Santa Monica despite all of the fuss over being in the car. Josh borrowed a pair of Tyler’s swimming trunks; he packed a few pairs even though he said he wasn’t banking on having time to go to the beach. It was mostly just wishful thinking, he said, but he was more than happy that he got use out of them. 

Josh’s reluctance to come up with a plan seemed like more than just passiveness — he was thinking. A lot. He wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it, either. Most of the walk was relatively quiet. They walked around barefoot in the sand amongst big tourist families and overly-sunned locals. Tyler laced his fingers between Josh’s pretty early on into the walk. They didn’t talk much. Tyler tried to strike up a conversation about the show they were watching the night before, but Josh wasn’t responding well; it was like he wasn’t fully there. 

The farther they walked along the shoreline, the quieter Josh got. He found himself staring at a couple far off into the water, hanging over each other as their friends talked and played around them. It felt silly to be so easily taken by a display like that, but Josh couldn’t stop thinking about their situation in ways he never even bothered to until now. What would happen if he and Tyler stayed together? Could he hang out with Tyler and his friends? Josh knew Brendon and his other friends wouldn’t care one way or the other, but he had no idea what kind of people Tyler spent time around. If Tyler’s friends wouldn’t like him, surely he already thought that through. Maybe that was why Tyler still hasn’t mentioned anything about seeing him again.

Josh let go of Tyler’s hand and walked into the water without so much as an, “I’m getting in.”

Tyler practically dove in after him.

“Josh!”

Josh dunked his head in the water and came up quickly, shaking out his hair and looking back in the direction of the beach. Tyler practically fell when he reached the drop-off in the sand, gasping and swimming over to the other man. They waded in the water for a moment, heads and shoulders peeking out of the surface.

“Hey,” Tyler half-yelled. The sounds of the ocean and the screaming teens nearby made it hard to be soft. “What’s going on? You gotta talk to me.”

“Do I really?”

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed the sort of melancholy mood he was in after they had gotten ready for the day; Tyler wasn’t blind. But aside from the day of the picnic, he’d never had Josh act so upset around him. The situation was different, he assumed, but he couldn’t rely on his judgement for everything. There was only so much you could know about a person in only one week.

“I guess you don’t,” Tyler said. “But it would be a lot easier if you did.”

“Nothing about this is easy, Tyler!”

“You-“ Tyler bit back his comment. He wasn’t going to tell him what to do again. “I don’t want to leave you like this. I don’t want to spend this whole day with you sad about me going back to San Diego.”

“Are you not upset?”

“I have to go home,” Tyler said.

He immediately wished that he hadn’t responded that way. Josh gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded, looking back off toward the crowds again.

“Of course, yeah,” he shook his head, rigid and quick. 

Tyler frowned and swam toward him, trying to move in a way that didn’t send Josh off in the other direction.

“Josh,” Tyler said, earnest and clear. “I need you to know that I like you a lot.”

Josh lifted his hand from beneath the surface and ran it through his hair, sighing and moving his gaze to the water.

“I might not be paying you for your company anymore, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop everything. San Diego isn’t even that far away!”

Josh’s throat burned worse than the sun beating down on his shoulders.

“I can’t just...stop everything I’m doing, you know,” he said, almost too quiet to hear over the waves. 

Tyler wanted to move closer, but he was afraid of Josh getting out of the water altogether. He didn’t know when he started to be afraid of scaring Josh off like he was a little animal. It felt silly, but he wasn’t going to leave this city without making sure they were at an understanding. 

He let the silence coax him into a further explanation. Josh swallowed and said, “I don’t want you to...seem like a sugar daddy or something like that. Sending money for clothes, having sex whenever you’re in town. I don’t-“ he sighed. “-I don’t want you to treat me differently because I don’t have money. And I’m not as smart. I don’t want that.”

Tyler knew that this was probably just Josh’s insecurities coming through again, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bit taken aback.

“It won’t be like that,” Tyler said, brows furrowing deeper. “It isn’t like that.”

“It’s not?” Josh had to laugh.

“Well, it shouldn’t be, and I’m sorry if it is. And it won’t be. You told me that you don't want that, and it wasn’t going to be like that anyway.” Tyler moved closer to him. Josh didn’t swim away. “I just want to know if it's okay if I text you or call you or see you again any time after I leave. Because I like you. And I care about you. And I want to know how you’re doing and I know I’m going to miss you being around.”

Josh wished he hadn’t trapped them in the ocean like this. He wanted so much for them to be together on the couch again. Maybe in bed. Just sitting at the table would be fine.

“I’m not going to be ridiculous and ask you to come back home with me. And I’m not saying you can’t, it's just- we’ve hardly even started anything! We spent half the time fucking — there are so many other things I want to do with you! I’m just...asking permission for this to continue on, I guess.”

Josh’s jaw quivered a bit. They stayed there under the sun, water a bit too cool for Josh’s liking. Tyler’s arm slipping around his waist brought the warmth back in.

“I feel like I threw a tantrum,” Josh said, embarrassed.

“Nobody screamed or cried. You did try to run away to the depths of the ocean, but that’s okay,” Tyler said, smile lifting his cheeks.

Josh let a small one of his own slip onto his face.

“I still might cry, though,” he admitted.

“I don’t think I could avoid crying with you this time.”

Josh rested his head on Tyler’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around him fully. A wave threatened to choke him, but Tyler chuckled and saved him by an inch, grabbing his thighs and holding him up to his waist like he didn’t weigh a thing.

Tyler talked up at him as if this were the most natural position. 

“So, am I allowed to call you?”

“Are you like...officially trying to date me?”

“I absolutely am.”

“Have you ever done the long-distance thing before?”

Tyler shook his head. Josh sighed.

“It’s hard. That’s why I’m scared.”

“We’ll be okay. I won’t put anything against you if it doesn’t work, but...I don’t really think we’re gonna have an issue. I’ve got nothing better to do on weekends than to pick you up or call you a Taxi or whatever.”

Josh brought a hand up to Tyler’s hair, dampening the front where his fingers threaded.

“I’m gonna text you memes and cry on the phone and try and have phone sex right after.”

“And I’m going to whine about work and read you stuff I’m working on and make you get on the computer for real phone sex. With video.”

Josh felt a grin tug at his lips.

“Skype sex is never private. People on the dark web can hack into webcams, you know.”

Tyler squeezed his thighs underwater.

“You posted videos of us fucking on your Snapchat.”

“That was voluntary. We were like...performing, too! That’s hardly the same thing.”

Tyler sighed and craned his neck up.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to come and get you so we can fuck in real life.”

“You don’t have to spend so much time and money just to come see me,” Josh said, bumping noses with him.

Tyler pressed a kiss to his lips and said, “Again, I only live, like, two hours away. That’s nothing. I’m only in the office four days a week. Fridays are optional. All I have is time and money and unused vacation days! I’ll never come unannounced, but I will come.”

Josh kissed him again.

“Gross.”

“Come with an ‘o’. You really are twelve, aren’t you?”

Josh snorted and let go of Tyler, moving back toward the beach.

“You’d better hope not,” he called behind him.

***

“I’m buying us dinner tonight,” Josh said before Tyler could even suggest a place to go. “So you have a choice between In-N-Out, Taco Bell, or Chinese.”

Tyler decided on Taco Bell, as if it were the most obvious choice.

Josh had fully planned to make Tyler drive him back home after they had dinner if this whole thing was a bust; the goodbyes and disappointment weren’t anything he wanted to deal with. But after their talk at the beach, the night’s feeling of impending doom evaporated. Nobody was upset. If anything, there was a new kind of excitement buzzing beneath their mostly-collected exteriors.

The pair sat in the front of Tyler’s car and ate in the parking lot, windows cracked and radio turned down low. They shared a Baja Blast freeze; Josh offered to split out of force of habit, but Tyler didn’t mind. 

He took a sip and handed the cup over to Josh and asked, “Have you ever been to San Diego?”

Josh shook his head, lips pressed around the drink’s straw.

“I haven’t been anywhere except Vegas since I left home, and I only went there because Brendon took me.”

“You’ll like San Diego,” he said. “It’s a lot calmer than LA, I think, but it's still fun.”

Josh swallowed a lump of cheese and tortilla.

“When do you think you’d want me over there?”

Tyler took a sip out of the cup and placed it in Josh’s waiting hand.

“Honestly...I could come get you this weekend, if you’re free.”

Josh’s heart sped as a shy grin grew across his cheeks. Trying to mask his excitement, he took another sip of the greenish ice.

“You’d want me over that fast?”

“Well, yeah,” Tyler said, like it was obvious. “What’s the point in waiting? You’re right here. It’d be a waste not to come get you.”

Josh’s tongue went between his teeth for a grin — the best of all his smiles.

“Yeah, I guess it would.”

Having sex one more time before Tyler took Josh home didn’t help minimize the void, but Josh knew that there was nothing to worry about. He was coming back next week — that was a promise.

Brendon had expected tears upon Josh’s return, but there was nothing of the sort. After tossing his bag on the floor of his room, Josh joined his roommate on the couch.

“Well?” Brendon asked expectantly. “How’d it go?”

“I had fun!”

Brendon waited, obvious request for more information showing through his furrowed brow.

“...You had fun?”

Josh pulled a knee up to his chest.

“Yeah,” he said, smile bright in his eyes. “He’s gonna come up to bring me to San Diego this weekend.”

“Oh?” Brendon’s eyebrows did even more work on his face. This time, they were suggestive — almost impressed. “You got yourself another gig? Or something else?”

“We’re kind of dating, so.”

“Kind of dating?” Brendon said, putting an arm up on the back of the couch. “And when did that happen? Right after you called me?”

Josh rolled his eyes, chuckled, and said, “No! Even worse. Just last night.”

***

Josh’s stays in San Diego started off as little weekend trips, then progressed into week-long affairs. After about six months, Brendon started to look for a new roommate.

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay if I leave now? I can stay another month or so if you need me to,” Josh offered, feeling a bit guilty as he packed up the last of his room. “Rent is way too high for one person. We barely made it with just the two of us!”

Brendon shook his head.

“There’s no reason for me to keep you from moving to a place you pretty much already live in,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

Josh quit his rummaging and stood back up, putting his hands on his hips as he looked at Brendon, his facial expression just as confusing as the bittersweetness of the scene before them. His forehead scrunched up with his knitted eyebrows, lips out ever so slightly in a pout.

“Don’t fucking cry, dude,” Brendon said. “Don’t cry until all your dildos are off the dresser and in a box.”

“I’m not gonna cry,” Josh said, on the defense. Brendon rolled his eyes. “It’s just really weird leaving like this! Like, I’ve never lived with someone so long.”

“You really don’t have a family?”

“You-“ Josh threw up his hands and turned back to his boxes, not even wanting to deal with Brendon and his smart ass. He knew he’d see enough of it until the very moment he left the place for good. 

“I just think it’s gonna be good for us,” he added, lifting a stack of jeans into the plastic tub on the floor. Brendon decided to sit right in the middle of the carpet. “I’m gonna stay in one place for once. You’re gonna see what it’s like living with someone who actually has a regular working schedule.”

Brendon laid back on the flat, carpeted floor and stared at the ceiling, lights blinding (but only by a little). Josh turned to see him snatch a belt from beneath the dresser.

“I’m only gonna get updates from you by, like, stalking your porn blog,” he said, folding the fake leather up in his hands.

“Or you could text me.”

“Or I could stalk your porn blog.”

Josh stayed quiet for a moment, unsure how to respond. Brendon noticed the shift in banter and turned his head toward him on the floor.

“What, are you not gonna do that stuff anymore?” he asked.

Josh sighed, reaching over to place a bag full of toys wrapped in a towel into the bin.

“I don’t know, maybe? I stopped like...being a hooker, but I don’t know about the rest of it. I just feel weird about it now.”

Brendon frowned.

“Weird? How come?”

“It’s just that-“ he huffed a sigh again, turning back around to face Brendon on the floor. “-Have you ever heard of survival sex?”

Brendon shrugged.

“Is it what it sounds like?”

“It’s when you have sex for money or food or anything you need to live in return — including pretty much any kind of sex work. Like, not just a job thing. Like, you’ll die if you don’t. That’s what I was doing.”

A small huff of laughter sputtered from Brendon’s lips.

“All work is for survival unless you’re, like, Jeff fucking Bezos. Isn’t that basically what every sex worker is doing?”

“A lot of us, yeah. Some people just like it.”

“...But you aren’t ‘some people’?”

This topic had been plaguing Josh’s brain for months. Sometimes alone, sometimes with Tyler, and once with Ashley, Josh found himself trying to justify his work. Breakdowns weren’t an issue anymore, but no amount of kiss-silenced hysterics was ever going to make the insecurity really go away. In reality, Josh still had no idea what he was doing or why he was doing it. It was taking a lot of mental gymnastics to try and make himself believe that he was fully on the path he needed to be taking, and he didn’t have the energy for it anymore.

“The thing is: I don’t know if I have to do it now. I’m not in danger of being homeless or anything like that. I’m in a loving relationship with a rich guy who’s asking me to come live with him until we die or breakup or get married or whatever! Now the porn is just like…a thing to do.”

“And you don’t like it?”

Josh shrugged and leaned up against the dresser.

“Then you should quit,” Brendon said, solid and frank.

That was an option, of course, but it was a complicated one. Sure, Tyler would have his back if there were a time he couldn’t support himself financially. His family would probably welcome him back home with no second thought. He wouldn’t have to read disgusting comments and scary messages from random strangers on the internet anymore. But despite everything, he still didn’t know how he really felt. 

There were people who had just bought lifetime subscriptions to his Snapchat. What kind of lifetime subscription is three days? He was always quietly making money. People bought his stuff from clip sites at least a few times a month if there was no new content; he could make hundreds on the first few weeks of an upload. And if he was being honest, he loved that Tyler was so supportive of him and his work. He liked the strange comfort in curling up in bed to show Tyler his latest activities on his phone. He liked knowing that Tyler was behind the camera or in the background or even willing to come into the frame sometimes. The support was wonderful and it was all fun and sexy and weird and he didn’t know if he’d gotten enough of it yet.

“It’s a bigger decision than that for me, I think,” Josh said.

Brendon shrugged.

“I don’t think it’s so urgent that you gotta figure it out now. What you do need to think about is how the hell you’re gonna get all this shit packed up in two fucking hours!” Brendon said, reaching over and whacking Josh on the calf with his new toy belt.

Josh yelped and kicked him lightly in his side. Brendon rolled over in a show of exaggerated pain.

“Maybe if you helped me instead of hitting me with my stuff, I’d be able to get it done!”

Brendon rolled his eyes and got up anyway, throwing the belt into the bin on the floor. He really was going to miss Josh, but he knew this was all for the best. Seeing Josh allow a healthy relationship in his life after such a long period of failed relationships and terrible fuck buddies -- himself included -- was worth the pain of having to find a new roommate. He couldn’t think of a person who deserved happiness more than him, and it looked like he was on the perfect path for it.

It took under an hour to fully pack up Josh’s room; Brendon was only giving him shit for the fun of it. They both knew everything was pretty much already over in San Diego. Tyler arrived half an hour early, much to everyone’s secret delight; goodbyes weren’t something any of them liked to go through. Brendon helped move Josh’s things to the car -- all two bins full -- and gave him a long, squeezing, whole-body-lifting hug.

“I’m gonna miss you, buddy,” he said, gently dropping his feet back down to the concrete. “But I’m glad you’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“I’m sure I’ll be out to LA sometime soon. I’m sure I can make a turn from all of the good stuff to visit this little matchbox of an apartment,” Josh teased.

Brendon shook his head.

“‘Matchbox of an apartment’. I can’t believe he taught you about like...metaphors. You’ve changed,” he pushed a giggling Josh toward the passenger side door. “Go be a wordsmith in San Diego.”

The pair mumbled their last goodbyes before Josh slipped into his seat, shut the door, and Tyler drove them off to his new home. There was a faint tug at his heart as they drove off toward the highway, some old song from the sixties playing quietly on the radio. Josh didn’t have any reason to change it, and Tyler didn’t have any reason not to be listening to it, so it must have been on for a reason. He supposed it added a sense of false nostalgia, but the weightlessness of his body held down by the embrace of his seatbelt was real enough for him.

“You okay?”

Josh snapped back to reality, the weight in his body returning so quickly he had to laugh.

“Oh gosh, yeah. I’m fine. This is just weird, you know?” he asked, not really looking for an answer. He turned his head back toward the window. “I’m only moving a couple hours away, but it almost feels the same as it did when I left Ohio.”

He put on a weird smile and looked back at Tyler.

“I can’t really tell if that’s a good thing or not.”

Tyler shrugged, a little huff of laughter blowing out of his nose.

“I’m sure it’ll be good if you let it be.”

Josh shrugged and grabbed for Tyler’s hand over the console. Tyler glanced down quickly and took a hand off of the steering wheel, easily lacing their fingers together.

“You’ve been worrying enough for the both of us. I don’t know if the air in this car can filter it out anymore.”

Josh picked up their hands and bounced them off of Tyler’s thigh in mock frustration.

“You’re gonna have to deal with driving with the windows down, then!”

Tyler chuckled and ran his thumb along the back of Josh’s hand.

“You’ve been through the worst of it already,” he said, glancing over at Josh rubbing at the fresh ink on his arm. “You spent the entirety of your early adulthood couch surfing and having sex with strangers for money. I think you can handle the suburbs again.”

Josh couldn’t help but grin, even as he tried his hardest to keep teasing.

“You better be right, Tyler.”

Tyler shrugged.

“I can’t say that I usually am. But I think it’s a pretty well-known fact that being a homeless hooker is a little bit more extreme in, like, how bad it is compared to...having a home.”

“That’s debatable,” Josh said. “Ask literally any pop-punk band.”

Tyler rolled his eyes.

“I’m not taking you back to the midwest. This is the suburbs from any teen movie ever.”

“This better be more like _Clueless_ than _Donnie Darko_.”

“Hey,” Tyler said, defensively. “I happen to love _Donnie Darko_.”

Josh shook his head and looked back out the window, grin still big and giddy on his face.

“I knew you had messed up taste when you let me come up to your hotel room.”

Tyler scoffed and threw Josh’s hand out of his lap, the dramatics throwing Josh into a fit of giggles. He knew Tyler was right. If he just let things be, everything would be alright. They would figure out what to do about his work situation. They would figure out what to do with their new lives together in San Diego. He would figure out what he wanted to get tattooed next, what color to dye his hair, what grocery store to shop at, what radio station to change to once the weird sixties nostalgia had worn off -- he’d figure it all out. And they’d all be fine. There really wasn’t much else he could ask for. And the universe was happy to give it to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well...........geez. it's over. thank you guys so so so much for reading this! it was really a long time coming and i was genuinely working until the Very Last Minute. really. this was posted like 2 minutes before friday ended. i don't know what else to say! this is weird! goodbyes are hard! this fic was such....an ordeal. thank you so much for sticking around -- i love literally everyone involved wow i'll see you guys again soon! again -- feel free to hmu on tumblr i'm literally so easy to find! AH! see you guys in the comments i guess <3 :*


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